In a recent Physics lesson we used a Go-Kart to demonstrate the relationship between Force, Mass and Acceleration. Pupils were challenged to represent the real life forces on the go-kart with free-body force diagrams. This leads on to a discussion of how the relationship can be represented in an equation F = M x A. Finally pupils were given numerical values and asked to calculate how much one pupil can accelerate another pupil on the go-kart.

By the end of the lessons all pupils achieved the outcomes of the lesson:

Explain what happens to the motion of an object when the resultant force is not zero.

Analyse situations in which a non-zero resultant force is acting.

(Higher tier) Explain what inertia is.

“We had a lesson on forces, which was a fun lesson because we used a go-kart to represent forces and air resistance with different weight on. “

“We had a lesson on forces which was good fun. We used a go-kart to learn about F=MA by pushing a pupil around the classroom and recognising what forces were acting on the go-kart. Overall the lesson was fun and we learnt a lot about forces.”

“We had a lesson on forces which was really good fun. We got the go-kart to learn about F=MA which was a fun lesson and really helped with our learning.”

“We had a lesson on forces which was interesting. We used a go-kart to learn about F=MA. When using the go-kart we had to figure out if there was more or less force than normal. We then changed the mass and force to change the results, the bigger the force, the bigger the acceleration and the bigger the mass the more normal force there was.”

“We used a go-kart to learn about F=Ma. It really helped and was a lot of fun because it was active. We had different weights on the go-kart and learnt about friction and air resistance.”

“We had a Science lesson on forces, which was pretty fun. We went on the go-kart and we learnt about F=MA which meads Force = Mass x Acceleration. We had lots of fun.”