Make a Parachute - Fun Science Experiments for Kids - 0 views
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rasimmons on 24 Sep 15This experiment uses a plastic bag, string, scissors and a small action figure. As you might have guested you are going to make a parachute. After you construct the parachute you will drop it as slow as you can. This shows air resistance. This is a great start to a lesson, an experiment, and even an example of a fair test! I would use this to start a lesson on air resistance ( or maybe even gravity). I would first drop my parachute in the class and ask students what happened. I might even drop both an action figure by himself, and an action figure on a parachute to farther demonstrate the air resistance. I might ask questions such as "why did this action figure fall more slowly? What was stopping him? Why/how? Then after a discussion I would get out materials for the whole class. I would ask students "What could we test using what we now know to create different parachutes and find out which one will work the best?" We would talk about how larger surface area creates more resistance and will make a parachute fall more slowly. In the aspects of a fair test I would try to guide the idea towards testing out maybe 5 different parachutes. The controlled aspect would be using the same material, and same size parachute. What would change would be how many holes we would put in the top of it. Holes in the top cause air to go through the parachute not around it, this causes the parachute to fall more straight. (This is something we might have found out through research.) The goal would be to make a parachute that falls as slow and straight as possible. The challenge would be where to place the holes and how big the holes should be.