KS3 ~ Year 7 ~ Forces At A Distance: Non-Contact Forces

This lesson is designed for the Activate KS3 Science Course, specifically Year 7 P1 ’Forces’.

For more lessons designed for KS3 and KS4 please visit my shop at: https://www.tes.com/teaching-resources/shop/SWiftScience.

The lesson begins with a recap activity, students will need to sort a list of forces into two categories: contact and non-contact forces. This task can the be self-assessed using the mark scheme provided.

Next, students will recap on the non-contact forces that they have already learned about: gravitational forces, magnetic forces & electrostatic forces. Students will the be asked ‘What is a Force Field’ - they will then need to ‘Think > Pair > Share’ their ideas. After a short class discussion, the answer can be revealed to students and they could take notes on this in their books.

Students will carry out an investigation which helps them to visualise the force field which surrounds a magnet. Students will place small compasses at pin-point positions surrounding a bar magnet. They will need to draw an arrow to represent the direction that each compass is facing, lines can be drawn between each position which will show the overall force field of the bar magnet. This task can be self-assessed using the mark scheme provided on the PowerPoint.

Next, students are told the difference between weight and mass, they are also given the calculation for the weight of an object when you are given the gravitational field strength of the planet the object is found on, plus the mass of the object. Using this calculation students will then need to complete a set of questions on weight & mass, once complete students can self-assess their work using the mark scheme provided.

The last task is a ‘Progress Check’ task, whereby students will copy and compete the paragraph of information to summarise what they have learned this lesson.

The plenary task requires students to write a twitter message to sum up what the students have learned in the lesson, they will need to try to #keywords.

All resources are included at the end of the presentation. Thanks for looking, if you have any questions please let me know in the comments section and any feedback would be appreciated :)