UPD8

a good ready to use with minimal prep lesson which appealed to all abilities

Reviewer: kathryn bye

was easy and simple to use as a non-physicist.
Extremely useful!

Thanks for designing a wonderful resource!!!

Reviewer: Thomas Shorrock

Really useful activity. Used it for an interview lesson with year 9 and it went down really well. The pupils understood the concept and enjoyed the real life aspect.
The practical section was fun and accessible to even the lowest ability students in the group

Reviewer: Jessica Wright

This activity went down very well with my Year 9 group. They are a very kinaesthetic group so being able to practically apply their knowledge worked really well with them - Just make sure you have good control before you let the planes fly!! Also the poster plenary task can be more useful if you make it more directed towards a particular purpose. e.g. a literacy linked task to 'explain' an aspect of the investigation. Overall, superb!

Reviewer: Joanna Leonard

Interesting activity. I used it with middle ability yr 9 and they really enjoyed it, especially the boys.

Reviewer: Ursula Miles

Used this for an interview and got great feedback. Low ability group all understood concept of moments by end of lesson

Reviewer: Jessica Wright

unable to download

Reviewer: Gerald Rea

All students were actively engaged and the topic brought a reasonbly dull topic to life. All students now have a good idea about what moments are.

Reviewer: Iain Hickman

pupils enjoyed it and were easy to keep on task. However in the expt it was difficult to keep launch force on plane the same, so it was suggested that a launch system was needed as the only other way was to keep throwing the planes as hard as possible which was very much enjoyed. Generally very well received in all with some useful scientific ideas brought up.
Tauseef Khan St Andrews Leatherhead

Reviewer: t khan

I am in the middle of planning a unit of work on the Commonwealth Games for next February. This activity will fit in well. Thankyou

Reviewer: Maureen Trotter

I used this with a class of accelerated year 8's; working at level 6/7. They loved it - we extended it to compare different plane designs as well as centre of mass. I had a great time teaching it, made for very interesting and accurate discussions about what and why; forces, moments etc.

I used it as an enquiry lesson following a test on forces; they hadn't done too well on the moments question. I think the activities helped reenforce the ideas about the topic, next year I'll use it before the test as it really helped understanding!

Makes a challenging concept (moments other than those in seesaws) more accessable through a relevant, fun practical activity. Thanks for an excellent activity.

Alex Flynn, Wildern School

Reviewer: Alex Flynn

Excellent. I used this with a year 9 all boys group with challenging behaviour and they were superb. It held their attention for the whole lesson and they made some valid conclusions at the end. Behaviour was good and they all used their brains without realising it!!!

I will use this with a lower group next week and hope for similary results with some small modifications.

Reviewer: Gillian Fox

This is an excellent investigation activity with a great context with the pupils getting alot out of this lesson. I used this activity with both my High and Low ability Y9 sets the same week. I had to differentiate the opening tasks but the investigation was differentiated by outcome. They really enjoyed modelling the javelin to consider the dynamics of how it worked and actually see how a sporting problem was solved and then being able to see the effects on the world record data.

I used it in the Forces topic to teach moments, which is always a difficult concept to teach. I projected the stimulus sheet and had a discussion about the data. I challenged pupils to see if they could explain the drop in the world record. They had a number of good ideas about this. The dynamic modelling exercise really helped them to understand exactly how a javelin works in flight and how moments are involved.

The class carried out the investigation using paper planes during the rest of the lesson and generated some very interesting results which backed up the evidenc ethat they had already considered.

Many thanks UPD8 for this excellent activity!!

Richard Waller, Comberton Village College, Cambridge

Reviewer: Richard Waller

i used the first sheets as a starter activity using a data projector. as it was initially published to coincide with the olympics, it was topical and engaging. the first concepts made the middle set y9 think and analyse information. there were kinaesthetic activities built into the starter which also helped the students to envisage the ideas being discussed.
moments are a difficult concept for some students and this definitely helped them to "get" the basics.
the timing was ideal too as we had just done the SATs exams and this was used as a teacher assessment for Sc1 skills. we all went outside and played with paper airplanes in the summer sun,
students didn't even know they were working!

Reviewer: margaret jordan