KS2 Science: The work of Galileo Galilei

Video summary

This vlog style film recreates a famous experiment in which Galileo, an Italian scientist, dropped two objects from the Leaning tower of Pisa in 1589.

He explains that he did the experiment to show the pull of gravity on an object is the same, regardless of their different weights.

He explains that force is a push or pull on an object.

He goes on to dispute Aristotle’s theory of force, and introduces the concept of posing a scientific questions (hypothesising) before experimenting.

This clip is from the series Scientists and their discoveries.

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Teacher Notes

As a starter to introduce a practical science activity, you could write a simple quiz to encourage pupils to capture the keywords shown in the video.

Pupils can write their own definitions from these words using the internet or science dictionaries to improve their scientific vocabularies.

To consolidate their knowledge, you could get pupils to make booklets that include key information about the work of Galileo Galilei.

They could define the keywords featured in the film, and find five or more pieces of additional pieces of information about the work of the scientists using books, encyclopedias or the internet.

Suitable for teaching Science at Key Stage 2 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland and at 2nd Level in Scotland. They also have cross-curricular links with History and Literacy.

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