8 speed/time problems from Olympic athletics, rowing and cycling aimed at GCSE students (Key Stage 4). This activity encourages students to think about what extra information they need to know for some parts of the questions, to research information and to identify when they need to make assumptions, and gives students opportunities to construct and justify approximations and estimates.
Detailed teachers' notes for this activity are available on our NRICH website.
Further information
Lane 5: The Physics of Rowing website provides detailed information on the effects of rowing upstream and downstream.
Lane 6: There's more information about the Velodrome track in our articles Leaning into 2012 and How the Velodrome found its form. There's also information about velodromes and track markings on Wikipedia.
