Pupils in S2 enjoy science. One of their favourite topics so far this year was friction. We examined how air can affect falling objects. We scrunched one sheet of paper up into a ball to give a smaller surface area, and we had a second sheet of paper which we kept flat. We released both pieces of paper at the same time, from the same height and observed which paper landed faster than the other. We took videos and watched the drops in slow motion. That was fun! We did lots of testing of different shapes of crunched paper, different heights and different types of paper. We discovered that there was friction when the paper travelled through the air, and that the air slowed things down more, if the items had a larger surface area.
We had even more fun testing sliding friction. We tested lots of items including: shoes, ball, books, toy vehicles etc. We discovered that different objects and materials slide at different speeds due to the amount of friction they produce.
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