What is Air Resistance?

Yesterday, Year 5 continued finding out about forces.  They had a piece of card to hold in front of them and ran across the playground and back. This started our discussion on air resistance.

Air pushes back against the piece of card so it is harder to run. This force is called air resistance.

We dropped two pieces of paper the same size, one scrunched up and one not. 

The scrunched up piece of paper, fell more quickly than the flat piece of paper.

This is because the surface area of the scrunched up piece of paper is smaller and so there is less air resistance.