Force
Forces and Motion
Teacher's boasting - for a purpose
Teaching Guidance
for 11-14
A show of strength
A nice starter activity is to boast
to the class that you have the strength to lift one of the pupils with one hand! No trouble! Ask them to think about how this might be possible, then demonstrate with a suitable lever.
A long wooden plank over a round wood log (or something similar) works very well. The lever needs to be arranged with the load close to the pivot point. Here the lever is acting as a force multiplier: You push down with a small effort through a large distance to lift the relatively large load a small distance.
