force and movement

Volcanoes often occur at the boundary where two tectonic plates meet. In New Zealand, the Taupō Volcanic Zone (TVZ), extending from Mt Ruapehu through Rotorua to...

Discover our Planet Earth and Beyond resources for NZ Curriculum levels 1 and 2 and find out why New Zealand is home to so many earthquakes...

New Zealand has volcanoes stretching from the Bay of Islands down to Otago. Many of our volcanoes are extinct (no longer active), some are dormant (not...

In this activity, students pop a balloon in a container of sand to model caldera volcanoes and learn how lakes like Taupō and Rotorua were formed....

In this activity, students make sandwiches to investigate tectonic plate boundaries and how they move during an earthquake. There are also non-food related alternatives for exploring...

In this activity, students use models to visualise the layers inside the Earth. The models use food items to demonstrate the layers. As an alternative to...

The Earth is an enormous place. There is so much that we don’t yet know about what happens on the surface of the Earth, so how...

We live in a very exciting country. A day’s drive in a car can take us from snowy mountains, past geysers and hot mud pools to...

The definition of a scientist is a person who studies or practises any of the sciences. Scientists find out about the unknown and the known. They...

Earthquakes are a fact of life in New Zealand, but we still don’t understand exactly what triggers them. Microscopes are some of the many tools that...

Taking science and technology to new heights. Rocket science includes ideas of forces and motion, how rockets work and some of the challenges for those wanting...

Rocket science includes ideas of forces and motion, how rockets work and some of the challenges for those wanting to make rockets go faster and higher....

In this activity, students investigate the motion of a rocket using a spreadsheet with graphs of motion included. They adjust variables and investigate how height and...

Your challenge is to make the rocket go as high as possible and launch a payload 400 km above the ground. You can change rocket parameters...

In this activity, students make a water bottle rocket. They investigate the variables that affect the height and distance travelled by the rocket. By the end...

In this activity, students make an effervescent canister rocket using baking soda and vinegar. They develop their understanding of rocket propulsion and investigate the amount of...

In this activity, students design and build a balloon-powered car to better understand the science ideas related to rocket propulsion. They use ideas of mass and...

In this activity, students view a slide show presentation introducing some rockets, their purposes and distances travelled in space. By the end of this activity, students...

Position: Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Canterbury University and Director of the Advanced Energy and Material Systems Lab. Field: Energy and materials engineering. Professor Susan Krumdieck...

Position: CEO and technical director, Rocket Lab Field: Rocket engineering Sir Peter Beck is CEO and technical director of Rocket Lab, a New Zealand rocket technology...

How does the acceleration of a model rocket compare to the Space Shuttle? By using the resultant force and mass, acceleration can be calculated. Forces acting...

Hypersonic vehicles are perhaps a dream of the future, but if they have a chance of happening, research is important to develop materials that will handle...

Rockets launched into space can be suborbital (brief visit to space) or orbital (staying in motion around the Earth) or can escape Earth’s gravity to travel...

Chemical rocket engines use a fuel (something to burn) and an oxidiser (something to react with the fuel). Together, they are referred to as the propellant....