Paul Preece at Camborne Science and Community College and his class of Year 9s investigate acceleration with the traditional trolley rolling experiment. Here the pupils use light gates to accurately capture the speed of the passing trolley at different positions on the slope so they have more time to analyse their results and consider what they mean. In this complete lesson, Paul demonstrates the equipment and explains the data his students are expected to collect. They then set off to do the experiment, which involves team work and organisation as well as using the ICT. This activity was one of several that contributed to a joint ASE/BECTA project exploring how the creative use of ICT in the classroom can support traditionally 'hard to teach' science topics. This is an extended version of one of the lessons featured in 'Hard to Teach - Secondary Science Using ICT' - see http://www.teachers.tv/video/34483

Video Series: Hard To Teach
Release Date 2009