Intel Education: Unit & Project Plans: Junior Cert Physics

Overview and Benefits

Project Design

Unit Plan Index

Instructional Strategies

Junior Cert Physics – Stretching Investigation Tool

At a Glance

Grade Level:
Junior Cert year 3

Subjects: Science

Topics: Physics / break down into sub-topics e.g. stretching

Time Needed: It has been designed so that students can practice scientific process at their own pace

Key Learnings: Scientific process

Things You Need

Materials and Resources

Unit Summary
Scientific process is central to the revised Junior Certificate syllabus, which amongst other things, aims to encourage the procedural, cognitive affective and communication skills through practical activities that foster investigation, imagination and creativity.

Curriculum Framing Questions
Planning and evaluation are central to this tool which has been designed to allow students complete the investigation cycle of planning, designing, experimenting, evaluating, redesigning and redoing, based on experimental evidence.

	Essential Question What is the correct method to carry out and evaluate an investigation?
	Unit Questions What am I trying to find out? What materials will I investigate? What am I trying to measure? How am I going to measure it? What Units of measurement will I use?

Student Objectives/Learning Outcomes
This activity will allow students the opportunity to practice scientific process by carrying out investigations on their own, outside the classroom, thus promoting independent learning. It will give them the opportunity to plan and discover by trial and error the correct method to carry out and evaluate an investigation.
By investigating the effect of applying a force to different materials which include, amongst other things, tendons, muscles and concrete, they will have the opportunity to use very small and very large numbers and practice using scientific notation.
They will produce graphs and be prompted to use these graphs to find solutions. It is hoped that as students explore numerous graphs, they will get used to seeing graphs as pictures that tell stories rather than simply a product of a mathematical equation, whilst at the same time becoming used to the concept of slope and intercept.

Instructional Procedures
The tool has been designed to give the student the opportunity to plan an investigation and discover by trial and error the correct method to carry out and evaluate an investigation.

Prerequisite Skills
Students will need to be comfortable using a computer for experimental purpose. Students will also need a basic knowledge of force and understand that applying force to an object will have an effect on it. A basic ability to apply the setup questions in a practical way is also required.

Materials and Resources
Internet Resources - www.skoool.ie*
Technology - Hardware - Any PC
Technology - Software - Windows 2000+

Contact Education ›

*Legal Information | Privacy Policy