Science Learning Hub Resources

Thanks to the brilliant Science Learning Hub team for these engaging, expert classroom resources*

Explore a range of classroom resources, including Physics made simple – force and motion (recorded PLD), Forces and speed, Balloon car challenge, Do you see what I see? (Optical Illusions) and lots more! [View all resources here]

Discussion Starters

Continue the conversation after the show!

• Google the 'Waterfall Effect'

• Your teacher's bottom didn't explode on the chair of nails! Why did we ask your teacher to sit as far back on the nails as possible? Why would it be a bad idea to sit on one nail?

• Why didn't the water fall out of the glass when Alan did the hoop and glass demonstration?

• Try finding the balance point on different objects around the class. Why do they have different balance points? Remember gravity is the force that pulls things to the ground.

• Try to hover a ping pong ball above a hair drier (on cool setting lol). Google the 'Bernoulli Principle'

• Has anyone ever 'double bounced' someone on the trampoline? This is also an energy transfer - like the ball bounce experiment. If there's two people on a trampoline and one person makes the other person bounce higher - which one is the 'big ball' and which one is the 'small ball'?

• The Table Cloth Trick is an easy one to recreate. How about changing some variables? Does it matter what material the table cloth is made out of? Does it matter where the objects on top are placed? What happens when you pull the table cloth faster or slower?

• Here's a step-by-step video of how to do the tablecloth trick.

• All forces work in push and pulls eg: gravity pulls things to the ground. Can you google other forces - do they work in push or pulls (or both). Can you find examples around the school of things moving - can you identify which forces are in action?

• Remember, the scientific process is easy. It's all about ask a question, have a think (prediction/guess), test it out, make observations (use your senses, what's are we experiencing?) and then onto explanations (why did this happen?) .... and then you can start the cycle again as you'll probably have more questions :)

• Want to figure something else out? Change a variable and try the process again. 

• When we test, we can test over and over again and sometimes we can change one thing to learn something new. This is called changing a 'variable'. Would it be a good idea to change two variables at once? Why or why not?