Special topics spotlight: Modelling Motion

In the Modelling Motion special topic, Years 5-7 students develop mathematical concepts through STEM activities. This special topic investigates real world situations and has a particular emphasis on mathematics playing a key role in STEM studies. In the first four lessons of the unit, students will:

• Create streamer graphs tracking their walking speed
• Predict and calculate the acceleration and deceleration of balls rolling uphill and downhill
• Find the height from which a dropped ball will take 1 second to hit the ground

In the remaining three lessons, students experiment with unbalanced forces to create acceleration. They will:

• Create, calibrate and use their own forcemeters to investigate motion
• Experiment with balls rolling on different surfaces and being released at different angles

This unit also explores the history of science, by comparing the students' experiments to those carried out by Galileo in his exploration of gravity. Have a look at the unit here and please send us any feedback!