Things you'll need to decide on as you plan: Contact Forces
Teaching Guidance for 11-14
Bringing together two sets of constraints
Focusing on the learners:
Distinguishing–eliciting–connecting. How to:
- convince children that inanimate things can push, just like they can
- develop the idea that a mechanism underpins the interaction that is replaced by force
- convince children that air can exert forces
Teacher Tip: These are all related to findings about children's ideas from research. The teaching activities will provide some suggestions. So will colleagues, near and far.
Focusing on the physics:
Representing–noticing–recording. How to:
- relate floating and sinking to forces, not to rules about displaced fluids
- relate
friction
to the mechanisms of friction - focus on the physical reasons for placing arrows
- justify omitting arrows from some diagrams
Teacher Tip: Connecting what is experienced with what is written and drawn is essential to making sense of the connections between the theoretical world of physics and the lived-in world of the children. Don't forget to exemplify this action.