On Tuesday in 4th class we talked about the two best footballers in the world, Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. We discussed what they were best known for. Abhishek said that Messi is known as “The King of Dribbling”.
We talked about why he is so good at dribbling. Abhishek said that it was because of his balance. When we talked about why his balance was so good, Mason noted that he was tiny and that this helped him.
We decided to investigate what it is that helps us keep our balance, as part of this year’s Discover Primary Science and Maths award. Mr. Foley explained that we all have a “centre of gravity”. Through our experiments, we investigated what effect our centre of gravity has on our balance.
For the first experiment, we had to sit down on a chair and try to stand up without leaning forward past our centre of gravity. We were surprised to find that it was impossible to stand up without moving our centre of gravity forward.
After that, we examined what happens when we lean too far forward or too far back past our centre of gravity. We found that we reach a point where we can’t stop ourselves from falling.
Tommy, Mason, Stephen and Jordan all tried this and fell back into their chairs. Mr. Foley leaned forward and fell to the ground. He stopped himself from getting hurt by using his hands when he fell forward to the ground.
These two experiments showed us that if we go too far past our centre gravity in any direction, we can’t stop ourselves from falling over!
We also decided to look at the difference a player’s height would make to their centre of gravity. We noticed how small Messi is and wondered would this help his balance.
The two tallest boys in the class stood beside the two smallest boys in the class. We noticed that the two smaller boys had a lower centre of gravity, and that their balance appeared to be slightly better.
We tried to do a test to examine this but it was hard to do as we could not make it a fair scientific test. We suspect that a lower centre of gravity will improve balance.
We did one final experiment to test our balance. We stood against the wall with our head, left shoulder and left leg against the wall. We then tried to lift our right leg up in the air. When we tried to lift it up high, some boys fell over. You should try this too and see what happens! (Be careful!)
We enjoyed learning about balance. We now know that Messi’s low centre of gravity helps him move in different directions quickly while still keeping his balance.
