A further important point to emphasise is that when additional resistance is introduced to a circuit in one place, the current...

Teaching Guidance 5-11 11-14

This is a common conflation. Children know that magnets are associated with a magnetic force and that there is magnetism...

Teaching Guidance 5-11 11-14

Some pupils will argue that air is needed to enable magnets to attract and repel each other.

Teaching Guidance 5-11 11-14

In real life, permanent magnets do wear out and lose their magnetism. Pupils sometimes associate this with the magnet giving...

Teaching Guidance 5-11 11-14

A floor seems to just be. How such a passive object can provide an upward force is indeed a puzzle.

Teaching Guidance 5-11 11-14

This misconception appears in two forms. The first holds that friction happens only when things move (slipping). This idea is...

Teaching Guidance 5-11 11-14

For many learners air is seen as nothing. Comparing the mass of air in a small domestic room to the mass of a child might help...

Teaching Guidance 5-11 11-14

Pupils' everyday experiences of magnets are likely to focus on situations where the force of attraction is important: For...

Teaching Guidance 5-11 11-14

The problem here is that pupils confuse the charge story of electric forces with the pole story of magnetic forces. This is...

Teaching Guidance 5-11 11-14

Mixing up gravity and magnetism is a common confusion. Both magnetic and gravitational forces act at a distance and both are...

Teaching Guidance 5-11 11-14

Orbiting astronauts are seen to float about in their spacecraft. This is often attributed, incorrectly, to there being no...

Teaching Guidance 5-11 11-14

This is held as being so obvious that most people wouldn't even bother to check it out. A heavy block of wood, mass 2 kilogram...

Teaching Guidance 5-11 11-14