Investigating Forces and Motion

Science is an important topic in our urban world as we are surrounded by technology based on the ways that physics, chemistry, biology and all other sciences work. Textbooks are necessary, of course, as are other books that cover the same topics in different ways. The “Investigating Science Challenges” series of books wisely limits itself to the area of physics, what most people think of as science, presenting the material with the key information in small pieces and lots of pictures. Each book has three “Let’s Investigate” sections, an experiment related to the topic using easily available materials and demonstrating a concept given in the text.

Richard Spilsbury has taken on a series of concepts that most people struggle with and has presented them clearly and briefly. He has successfully included both interesting real world facts and definitions on many of the pages and also includes related and exciting photographs. It is great to see a wide variety of young people showing how to do the experiments and illustrating the points of the text. Some of the people appear in more than one book giving more sense of continuity.

It is encouraging that, in addition to the glossary, references and index, there are tips for doing the experiments included at the back of the book. Once readers have used one of the books, they will know what to expect in the others.

Of the books in the “Investigating Science Challenges” series, Investigating Forces and Motion is possibly the easiest to understand and the most concrete. Forces and motion are at the centre of engineering and the basis of the design of buildings, bridges, boats and almost everything else that is built. All of that is beyond the scope of this book although it gives a good introduction to the concepts involved in a straightforward way with fun examples such as basketball, a race car and skateboard, a cheetah and a parachute. The final section even discusses streamlining using the example of a maglev train.

The information given builds slowly, carefully and logically through all the concepts needed to acquaint the reader with the basics. The text is split into three sections, divided by the experiments. The first section discusses forces and friction with an investigation of friction using a skateboard. Next is a look at the results of forces, a change in speed or direction with the experiment using wind on a sail. The third part begins with balanced or unbalanced forces, the effect of gravity and patterns of motion with a pendulum experiment. A wonderful combination!

Investigating Forces and Motion gives a very good foundation for all of the concepts involved. Doing is a great way to learn, and the book’s experiments make the ideas more real and understandable.

The “Investigating Science Challenges” seems to be designed to fill specific curriculum requirements in both science and in research methods. If this is the case, the series is a success as it contains numerous ways to draw students into the topics and experiments that are easy enough for young people to perform while getting a more practical understanding of how science works. A budding scientist or engineer will be particularly attracted to these ideas and to the method of presentation.