This week in Class 2…

In science this week we have been focusing on forces. We were answering the enquiry question: How do forces and magnets affect how things move and interact?

We began by investigating the movement of objects and how different materials affect how things move. To do this, we set up an investigation to see how a toy car travelled along different materials. We carefully planned the investigation thinking about possible variables which we could change an those we would keep the same to make it a fair test. We selected the variable which would help us to answer our predictions – the material. We kept the ramp height and car the same and then measured the distance the car travelled on the material.

We recorded our results in a chart and drew our conclusions – the car travels further across smooth material.

In our next lesson, we explored magnets. We tested different objects to see if they are magnetic and used language of attract and repel to explain what happens to different objects. We found out that magnets have a north and south pole and that opposite poles attract and pull together whereas the same poles repel and push apart.

We also had fun making magnetic objects move without direct contact and designed a maze for them to travel through.

Following this we learned how the world is a giant magnet and that a compass works by using this magnetic field. We enjoyed making and testing our own compasses.