Magic of Mechanics

There is growing concern at the decline in the number of students studying mechanics at A-level standard and the consequences of this for relevant undergraduate courses. This decline is in part due to the implementation of Curriculum 2000 [1], but also the subsequent changes in A-level mathematics in September 2004 [2], [3]. Figures on the uptake and availability of the applied modules that students can study at A-level, e.g. Mechanics, Statistics, Decision & Discrete, were put forward in a paper entitled “Mechanics Teaching in Schools: Implications for Undergraduate Engineering Courses” [4]. There it was shown that the availability and uptake of Statistics was greater than that of Mechanics. For example, 5% of schools did not offer any modules in Mechanics, whereas only 1.25% did not offer any Statistics modules. In addition, changes to A-level mathematics effective from September 2004 reduced the number of applied modules students are required to study and led to the expectation that, in the future, there will be even fewer students who have studied several mechanics modules entering higher education programmes. In response to this situation the Mathematics Education Centre at Loughborough University organised and ran a ‘Magic of Mechanics’ morning aimed at introducing mechanics to college students.