Olympic Quests

This resource consists of a set of tasks from the Science Assessment Tasks for More Able Students collection, produced by the Centre for Science Education. The tasks have an Olympic-inspired theme and are split into three 'quests'.

Each quest is flexible in use and freestanding in that it can be used either in class or as part of an extracurricular science club, during lunchtime or after school sessions. Quests can be used by whole classes and are designed to be accessible to more able 11-14 year old students. They may also be used with students aged 14-16.

In Quest 1, students have the chance to develop ideas about the javelin, one of the original Olympic sports and still a part of the modern Olympics today. Students have the chance to find out about the history of the javelin and also about how an understanding of aerodynamic forces plays an important part in explaining how the modern javelin works.

In Quest 2, students have a chance to investigate a physiological measurement of heart rate, analyse their own data, and compare their data with data from top athletes.

Quest 3 is a series of mini challenges based on measurements such as time, distance and windspeed. Students consider the most appropriate methods for a range of sports scenarios.Questions enable students to refer to accuracy and precision of measurements.