What happens when a room full of curious Prep students spend a day exploring forces?
You get racing balls, spinning wheels, moving machines, plenty of questions and countless discoveries.
On Monday 7 September, our Prep students stepped into a giant hands-on laboratory at Scienceworks, where the concepts they’ve been investigating in class suddenly appeared all around them. Their unit on pushes and pulls moved off the page and into the real world as students experimented, observed, predicted and tested their ideas through a series of interactive experiences.
From building and creating solutions in the Make, Solve, Create workshop to exploring movement and energy in the Toys & Forces – Energy Lab, students became scientists, engineers and problem-solvers for the day. Every exhibit invited them to ask, “What happens if…?” and encouraged them to discover the answer for themselves.
Throughout Scienceworks, students investigated how forces can make objects start moving, stop, speed up, slow down or change direction. They pushed, pulled, rolled, launched, lifted and experimented their way through exhibits including Ground Up, Think Ahead and Sportsworks, making connections between their classroom learning and the world around them.
Perhaps the most exciting part of the day wasn’t finding the right answer. It was discovering new questions.
Why does one object move further than another? How can a small push create a big effect? What makes some things easier to move than others?
These moments of wonder are what science is all about.
By the end of the excursion, our Prep students had done much more than learn about forces. They had experienced the joy of investigation, the excitement of discovery and the confidence that comes from testing an idea and seeing what happens next.
Sometimes the best learning begins with a simple push.
