Everyday Forces

What stops a rolling football?

When a football rolls on the ground, the ground applies a force
to stop its motion. This is called the force of friction. A frictional
force appears whenever two surfaces come in contact. It is less in
case of smooth surfaces and more with rough ones.

1. Roll a marble on the floor. Put a mark where it stops. Measure

the distance travelled by the marble.
2. Repeat step 1 on a newspaper, a sandpaper, a graveled path, a wet
surface and an oily surface. Compare the measured distances. What
can you conclude from your results?

Sliding Friction
You will need:
 a toy car
 two rubber bands
 a sloping surface

1. Choose a slope along which the toy car can slide down.
2. Lock the wheels of the car by criss-crossing the rubber bands
over them on both sides.
3. Place the car on the slope. Does it slide down? Why not?

What makes things fall?

 A stone does not move sideways without being pushed. It does not
move upwards unless thrown or pulled up. But if you lift a stone
and let it go it will always fall towards the ground. This is due to
the force of gravity. It is a force with which everything is pulled
towards the Earth. The acceleration is due to the gravitational
force and is equal to 32 ft per second or 9.8 meters per second.

Which object reaches first?

You will need:
 a big stone
 a small stone
 a friend
 a tall building

1. Drop the two stones from the same height from the top of the
building.
2. Ask your friend to note which one reaches the ground first. Are
you surprised at the result? Though it seems that the heavier stone
will reach first because more force acts on it, you should remember
that its inertia is also more. All objects fall at the same rate.

The lazy paper

1. Drop a small piece of paper and a coin from the same height. Do
they reach the ground at the same time? If all objects fall at the
same rate, what holds up the paper? Air resistance does.
2. Will the result be the same if the experiment was done in
vacuum?
3. Put the paper on the coin and drop the two. What happens this
time? Can you explain why they now reach the ground at the same
time?

Curving through the air

If you throw a ball straight up, it falls down vertically. What

happens when you throw it at an angle? When you throw a ball at
an angle, it first goes up into the air because of the force with which
you throw it. Then it starts to curve downwards due to the pull of
gravity. The path travelled by the ball is called its trajectory.

Trace the trajectory

You will need:
 a drawing board
 a sheet of paper
 board clips
 a nail
 a rubber band
 a marble
  poster paint
 a spoon

1. Clip the paper on the board. Place the board at an angle.

2. Fix a nail to the bottom left of the board. Pass the rubber band
through the nail.
3. Put a blob of paint in the spoon and roll the marble in it.
4. Pull back the rubber band and rest the marble on it. Release
the band.
5. The painted marble will trace out its trajectory on the paper.
6. Change the angle of release and the starting velocity of the
marble by varying the pull on the rubber band. How does this
affect the height and the horizontal range of the trajectory.

Centrifugal force
You will need:
 a strong rubber band
 a stone

1. Tie the stone to the rubber band.

2. Whirl the stone around in a circle at an arm’s length. Can you see
the stretch in the rubber? This is caused by a force acting on the
stone directly outwards from the center of the circle. It is called the
centrifugal force. Centrifugal forces come into play whenever an
object is moving in a circle.
3. Whirl the stone faster. The stretch on the rubber band will
increase because the centrifugal force increases with the speed of
rotation.
4. While rotating, suddenly let go of the band. In which direction
does the stone fly off? A centrifugal force occurs because a rotating
object wants to keep moving in a straight line but is pulled around
in a circle. This is why the stone speeds off in a straight line as soon
as it is released.

The climbing marble

You will need:
 a marble
 a glass bowl

1. Put the marble in the bowl.

2. Whirl the bowl fast. What does the marble do? The marble wants
to go off in a straight line, but is held back by the sides of the bowl.
So it climbs up the sides!

Loop
Search the name of the 12 scientists in the word search below.
Can you find all of them? Circle their names.

W T Y B N
L A V O I S I E R
O I D A L T O N K X A
J H A V O G A D R O R A E
M T N E W T O N F A R A D A Y I
R I H B D B E Y B H O R E T U I M O
I O H E C A V O P W Q L N G W
E R M B E C Q U E R E L C U R E M
C I S G W U R U T H E R F O R D T
B R O I L I R O E N T G E N L A V I
G N K W I N E I T S D L O G I P
D P E E N M E W A R T Y I
W A R I S T O T L E J
V O L T A

Loop
Circle the names of the scientists listed below who made
contributions in the development of the periodic table of elements.
You may find them vertically, horizontally or diagonally.

P O M D O B E R E I N E R T S
H M E N D E L E E V M A E R N
I I Y B G Y S H T T A L M A A
D L E H A B R N H T O L E V H
Z J R E N E A A I M U M H E T
J I L C L E N L R I L R J R A
O A R K E L D A D V G A T S N
E Z N R I S Y V R E N T J S J
Y I C H A N C O U R T O I S O
W L M J G N J I O G B N N X Y
N E W L A N D S Y E T Y G J A
J M N E L E M I L L I A A H S
A A A H E I D E Y E L E S O M
N R O Y A L D R I N I N I J A
B E R Z E L I U S S S I E C R

Berzelius Lavoisier Newland

Mendeleev Meyer Ramsay
Moseley Strutt Travers
Chancourtois Dobereiner Winkler

Loop
Do you still remember your previous science subjects?
Unscramble the following terms related to cell structure. The first
letter of every word is already in its proper location.

1. MARBEMEN _____________________
2. LOSEMOSSY _____________________
3. CLAPSTOMY _____________________
4. CLLE WLAL _____________________
5. NESCULU _____________________
6. GLIGO _____________________
7. MARCHITODONI _____________________
8. VEALOCUS _____________________
9. PIDSALTS _____________________
10. EREKUTOYAS _____________________
Element Crossword Puzzle
 Use the symbol and characteristics as clues to name the
elements.
1 2 3

4 5

6 7

ACROSS
2 – It is used excessively in the
modern world, and is widely used
in cooking equipment and in food
packaging industry. (Al)
4 – It is used as an alternative to
Argon in the lightbulbs. (N)
6 – It is the most widely occurring
elements on Earth. (O)
8 – It is used for protection from
nuclear disasters (I)
DOWN
1 – It is the most important
component of alloys. (Sn)
2 – It is a gas existing in the
atmosphere; first discovered by
Rayleigh and Ramsay. (Ar)
3– It is a rare, very soft element. (In)
5– It is the fifth most abundant
chemical element in the universal
scale. (Ne)
7 – It is used in making phosphors,
used in the television set cathode ray
tube displays (Y)