#ScienceLessonAtHome of the day.
Egg Drop
Do heavier objects fall faster, slower or at the same rate?
Galileo did this experiment from the top of the Leaning Tower of Pisa with melons! Here is a version you can do at home.
You will need:
✅3 Eggs
✅A needle
✅A bowl
✅A saucepan and stove
✅Kitchen scales
✅Dust pan, brush etc.
✅ Mouthwash
1. Weigh your eggs to select three as close to the same size as you can.
2. Place one of the raw eggs safely to one side.
3. Help your child to hard boil one of the eggs. It will need about 10 minutes. Allow it to cool.
4. Wash the third egg well. Help your child to use the needle to make a small hole in either end of the egg. Poke the needle into the hole and wiggle it a bit to burst the yolk.
5. Blow into the top hole whilst holding the egg over the bowl. You should be left with a shell.
Be careful not to eat any raw egg. Use a little mouthwash after doing this.
6. Now weigh your eggs again to find out their new masses. You now have three objects that have different masses, but are still pretty much the same size and shape. Therefore the air resistance on them will be fairly equal.
7. Take your three eggs to a suitable high point where you can drop them and don't mind making a bit of a mess!
8. (Optional) If you have the facility, video this next bit on your phone so you can watch it back. If you have a slow-mo function. Use it.
9. Drop the two eggs and the eggshell at exactly the same moment.
Watch carefully to see if they land at the same time or different times.
10. Clean up. Maybe have an omelette.
The Science at Work
I could spend a long time typing this, but that would be re-inventing the wheel. So I will refer you to these excellent key-stage appropriate explanations that have already been written. With diagrams.
KS2 theschoolrun.com/homework-help/…
Suggested Extensions / Enrichment
1. Show your child this famous video clip of an experiment that was done on the moon. The moon has almost no atmosphere, so air resistance does not affect how the objects fall.
2. Get to grips with the difference between MASS and WEIGHT by getting your child to measure their MASS in kilograms and then use this table to calculate their WEIGHT on different planets.
E.g. I have a mass of 75kg on the moon.
75kg x 1.62 m/s² = 121.5 Newtons
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