Our new mini topic is Forces.
Rather than explain what air resistance is, we got the Year 6s to feel air resistance today. Running with a parachute tailing you is significantly more difficult that running without. It even adds seconds on to how long it takes you to run 100m!
Three children ran the same distance without anything attached to them:
We timed how long that took and recorded it.
Each person in the class had a different job and we all took our roles very seriously.
Then, we attached the parachute…
It reduced our running time by an average of 3 seconds!
We’re going to continue to investigate this over the next couple of weeks. This will make our data more reliable (and will mean we all get a go with the parachute).
We’re also going to use this information to investigate air resistance in relation to parachutes. We started this off with a simple experiment around a flat piece of paper and a balled up piece of paper and watching them fall. Try this at home and see whether you can complete the missing labels on the diagram below:
