Abby Borth- Elementary Science Methods

  1. This week in lab, we continued to look at the question, how can we support play that is exciting but not dangerous? For this we looked at the specific question, how can we design a safe and durable playground surface? For this, we modeled a child's fall with an egg. Our challenge was to prevent an egg from breaking when dropped from a height of 1-meter. Our surface could not be any thicker than our bowl. We were able to choose from various materials to place in the bowl. We had options such as rubber, hay, saran wrap, and sand. We chose to try the rubber. This worked at 1-meter. The egg did bounce when it hit the rubber, but it did not crack. We then tried 2-meters and it bounced then cracked even after adding hay and saran wrap. In this lab, we learned that too much force will break an egg. But the more gradually the egg slows down, the smaller the force.  2. We did not have lecture this week.  3. Pendulums and Energy  I learned that energy can take many differ...

  1. This week in lab we continued to explore the question, how can we support play that is exciting but not dangerous? This week we investigated swings with the question, what affects how long it takes a swing to go back and forth? My group investigated the variable weight. Our question was, how does weight affect how long it takes a swing to go back and forth four times? We did three trials with three different weights. We did this by adding weights to a string that was connected to a stick. We made sure that we started the string in the same position each time. We timed each trial then calculated an average. We found that weight did not impact how long it would take a swing to go back and forth. There was not a large enough time difference to make it meaningful.  2. In lecture, we learned what forces acted on a child on a swing. We found that the force of the rope does and the force of gravity, and possibly air drag. The force of gravity pulls straight down and the rope pul...

  The big question addressed in lab, and a description of what you did. In lab we continued to look at the big question, how can we support play that is exciting but not dangerous? We investigated slides and different variables to keep in mind. Our group investigated the question, how does the weight of a rider affect the speed down the slide? Our independent variable was the weight of the rider and our dependent variable was the speed. We did four trials of four different weighted blocks. We found that there was not a significant change of speed depending on the weight of the block so we found our evidence to not be meaningful. We found the claim that the weight of a rider does not affect the speed down a slide. We predicted that we may find different results if the weights differed more from each other.  A description of what you learned in Thursday's lecture. In Thursday's lecture we revisited the variables that could affect the speed of a rider down a slide. We l...