Lauren Dark &
Ashleigh Taylor's Science Team.
DAY TWO:
On our second visit to Mrs. Dark's class at Dadeville Elementary
School, we taught her second grade class about momentum with the
following experiments.
Momentum
1) Balls of Different
Mass- Stand a 1ft section of 4x4 up. Show kids two
items, a racket ball and a ball of clay of the same mass. Ask
them which they believe will most easily knock over the block?
Racket ball turns it over the easiest.
-Why? The average force of the block
equals the change in momentum of the object divided by the time
interval required to bring the thrown object to halt. Assuming
the time is approximately the same, the average force of
stopping the ball is twice the stopping force of the clay,
because the change in momentum of the ball is twice of the clay.
2) Egg Toss- Hold up a
bed sheet and let the students throw eggs against the sheet to
try to break the egg shell.
-Why is this impossible? Because the force
applied by the sheet to the egg is the change in momentum of the
egg divided by the time interval required to bring the egg to
halt. Since the egg stops much slower when thrown against a
sheet than it does when thrown against a brick wall, the force
is much smaller. Generally not enough to break the egg.
Everyone enjoyed these
experiments even Mrs. Dark had to get in on the fun! 