Resources for science – Update September 2000

by Roger Frost (for EC&T Magazine)

Force and Motion (Fable) is a new sweet piece of software. Aimed at ages 15 plus it offers a chance to experiment with models of collisions, circular motion, satellite orbits and so on. The sweetness comes from a mix of nice looking graphics and game-like scenarios that do things not really possible in the lab. For example they can click and draw a velocity-time graph then see a sports drive along to mimic the graph. If the blowing back hair of the driver adds fun, science teachers will quickly see this as a teaching tool. In others experiment pupils change the sizes of two billiard balls and explore how they collide or guide a satellite orbiting the earth. Here is some software that actually solves problems, never mind that there’s a lot here for the money and it’s quick to find what to do.