Octopushy!

TEACHER'S NOTES

Key Stage 1

INTRODUCTION

Octopushy! is based on the sections on forces of Attainment Target 4 of the National Curriculum for Science. We aim to make the scientific content self-explanatory but these notes will give you a guide to the topics covered so that preparatory and follow-up work can be done.

The play is presented as a James Bond pastiche and follows the fortunes of Max Thrust, secret agent, as he tries to uncover the whereabouts of his colleague and discover the nature of ‘Octopushy!’.

SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS EXPLORED

FORCES AND WHAT THEY DO

Max Thrust and his Boss discuss forces and what they do. We see a pulling force employed to open a draw and a pushing force used to close it nad we seea twisting force as a combination of a pushing and pulling force. As an object falls to the ground we name the pulling force of the Earth as Gravity.

Max and the Boss sing a song and the children are taught the word and actions. The song is repeated and the children asre encouraged to join in:

They push and pull

And twist and turn.

That is what you have to learn.

They change a shape,

Or change a speed.

On that I’m sure we’re all agreed.

And that’s what makes a force!

The song is repeated with its accompanying actions once more and further on in the play the children are asked to sing the song again.

FRICTION

Friction is introduced as the force which stops movement. The children are asked to rub their hands together to feel the force of friction and we feel that our hands get warmer. So we conclude that the force of friction produces heat.

An experiment is then set up: a brick is pulled over different surfaces to see which has the most friction. We use ice, sandpaper and a tea towel and see that sand paper has the most friction whilst ice has the least.

We then discuss the force of friction and see that it can be a useful force eg. for an athlete the force of friction will help their shoes grip a running track and that there are situations when the force needs to be reduced to a minimum eg. an ice skater needs to reduce friction to glide over the ice.

We repeat our forces song with the actions to remind us of what forces are.

MAGNETISM

The idea of magnetism is introduced. Max tells us that magnets are used in all sorts of everyday things such as CD players, loud speakers, cat flaps.

We explain that magnets have a ‘north’ and ‘south’ pole and experiment with the two poles to see how the forces react. Max is forced to wear a magnet with the North Pole on his front and the South Pole on his back and the evil Dr Blowoff shows us that if the North Poles are both facing they repel whereas if a North Pole and a South Pole are facing each other they attract. We conclude that different poles attract and the same poles repel.

At the end of the play we see the evil Dr Blowoff trying to upset the magnet poles of the earth by building the world’s largest magnet and placing its north pole at the south pole. However, Dr Blowoff had made one fundamental error: the north pole is in fact a south pole magnetically and so the whole plan could never have worked!

FORCES WORKING IN OPPOSITION

Although forces are pushes and pulls we see that there are different kinds of pushes and pulls eg. Gravity, magnetism and friction and we see that they never work alone.

We look at the action of pulling out a chair and find the forces at work. Firstly we see the pulling force used to move the chair and we also see that there is friction at work against the direction of the movement. We see that gravity is pulling the chair down, keeping it on the floor, and also that there is an equal pushing force, the up thrust from the floor stopping the chair from being pulled through the floor.

We use force arrows to denote the direction of the force, and see that forces tend to work in pairs in opposition.

We repeat the forces song with the actions to reinforce what we have learnt about forces.

AT THE END OF THE PLAY

The actors will take a question and answer session for 5 – 10 minutes after the performance when they will quiz the children on the science they have just seen in the play and will take questions from the audience on any aspect of the production. We hope you all enjoy the show and take away plenty to think about in the classroom.