Investigating Slopes

We did a lot of talking about slopes. When we thought about slopes we thought about the following words: steep, mountain, stairs, ‘slanty’, up and down.

We thought slopes were useful for wheelchair ramps, slides, skiing and rolling down!

We thought they could be dangerous if you go down them too quickly or if they were slippy.

We made our own slopes using empty kitchen rolls cut in half, blocks and blutack.  We rolled marbles down them.  We changed the height of the slope and the surface the marble rolled on to.

We discovered that the higher the slope the further the marble went BUT if we made the slope too high the marble just crashed!

We also discovered that the marble travelled faster and further on smooth surfaces and bumpy surfaces only slowed them down or stopped them.