Speed

I have created a unit of mathematics on the subject of measurement for the 'Happy Feet' maths group. I wanted to include measurements that students could relate to, and with the Olympics having just concluded, I designed one of the lessons on speed. We learned to measure our running speed (using distance and time) and compare them to 100m Olympic Champion Usain Bolts!

We calculated that Usain Bolt runs at a top speed of 45kph, whereas the fastest student in Room 3 managed only 20kph! That got us thinking.... what speeds can other animals such as the cheetah run at? What about birds, or even fish? Here is what we found. Happy Feet co-wrote and presented this slideshow to the rest of the school at assembly.

Enthusiastic 3 have been investigating speed in our maths class. We thought it would be fun to compare the speeds of different animals. Here’s what we found.....

Let’s start with our old friend the tortoise. A real slowcoach, he can only travel 300 metres in 1 hour. Don’t bother sending him to the dairy for ice creams!

Chickens can’t run can they? Well yes they can, but only at modest speeds of around 15 kph. Bukerrrrrrk!!!

Yes, we are a bunch of animals. Room 3 students reached speeds of 20 kph. That’s fast enough to catch a chicken. Who needs KFC!

This is very worrying! With a top speed of 32 kph the Black Mamba snake can easily outrun, or should that be ‘outslither’ a room 3 student!

How about Olympic champion Usain Bolt? His world record time for the 100 metres is 9.58 seconds! If he gave the fastest runner in Room 3 a 50 meter head start, he’d still win a 100m race!

This is not a fishy tale! The Tuna can swim at over 75 kph. It could swim all the way to Wellington and back home in time for lunch!

The Cheetah is the fastest animal on land and can reach speeds of 113 kph! That’s fast enough to get a speeding ticket on the Wellington motorway!

Finally – the king of speed. The Peregrine Falcon makes all other animals look like slow coaches with a top speed of 349 kph. At that speed a flight down to Wellington would take only 24 minutes!
We hope you enjoyed our presentation! And remember, you may be faster than a chicken, but you are slower than a Tuna!