Parachute Investigation REPORT-1

Year 8 Science Forces & Energy
Parachute Investigation
Aim
Provide a clear brief statement of the purpose of the experiment with reference to the dependent and
independent variables.
To change the size of the plasticine to see how it affects how fast it falls in the experiment.
_______________________________________________________________________________________
Independent variable: Size of the ball of plasticine. ______________

Dependent variable: How fast the ball of plasticine falls. __________
Controlled variables:
1. The plastic bag (parachute)
2. The height of the dropx
3. The length of the string used.
Hypothesis
Write a prediction of what you think the result of your experiment will be.
We hypothesise that the less plasticine we use, the slower it will fall thus not taking as much
damage.______________________________________________________________________________
Checkpoint 1: Show Miss Nash your work so far!
Equipment
List all the equipment and/or materials to be used in the experiment (use exact amounts).
 Plastic bag
 String
 Plasticine
Scientific diagram
Use this space to insert an image of a hand-drawn labelled design of your parachute. Indicate the variable that
is going to be changed.
Method
 Provided a numbered, step-by-step description of how the experiment was carried out (including the
process of building the parachutes).
 Include exact measurements and the instruments used to measure your results.
 Make sure you have designed a reliable and fair experiment and controlled all variables except the one you
are changing.
1. Get all the materials you need.

2. Make 3 different sizes (10g [pink], 15g [yellow], 20g [light yellow]) of balls of plasticine.
3. Attach 3 pieces of string (20 cm each)to each ball of plasticine by rolling the plasticine around the string (9
pieces of string in total).
4. Connect 1 plastic bag to each of the balls of plasticine (3 plastic bags in total).
5. Drop each ball of plasticine (1m high) three times each (trials) and time it with a stopwatch from when you
first drop it from your hands to when it has hit the floor.
6. Create an average of each ball of plasticine dropped from the three times recorded and compare the time for
each size of plasticine.
Risk assessment:
Identify two risks and the management strategies that are needed to be taken to prevent injury during the
experiment.
Risk Management strategy

Accidently dropping the Don’t push while dropping the ball of plasticine to avoid a
plasticine on someone's foot possible injury.
Choking on string Keep all string away from anyone's face and be careful of your
surroundings.
Results
Record your results here. This be in the form or a table with a title, appropriate column headings, at least 3 trials
and a column for the average. (Feel free to conduct more than three trials!)
Size of the ball (g)

Time taken to hit the ground (s)
Average (s)
Trial 1 Trial 2 Trial 3
10g 0.73s 1.03s 0.88s 0.88s
15g 0.68s 0.81s 0.83s 0.73s
20g 0.70s 0.73s 0.90s 0.78s
Graph
Graph your results below as a line graph on graph paper. Include a title, axes labels with units, linear scales
and a line of best fit. Insert an image of your graph below.
Discussion
1. What trends or patterns did you observe during this experiment?

We found it curious how 15g took the shortest amount of time to hit the fall instead of the 20g
being the quickest. This could’ve been caused by possibly inaccurate height or the string being
shortened by putting it in the plasticine deeper.
2. Identify the forces acting on the parachute as it falls and the direction in which these forces are
acting.
Gravity an air resistance act on the parachute because gravity pulls the parachute down but the
bag creates air resistance for the parachute to stay longer in the air
3. Describe how the size of the forces acting on a parachute change from when it is released to when
it lands on the ground.
Gravity has a larger size force acting on the parachute than air resistance, the longer it takes for
the parachute to hit the ground, the more force air resistance has when released.
4. Identify one issue you encountered during your experiment and suggest one way to improve this
issue if you were to repeat this investigation.
One issue my group uncounted was managing to attach the strings into the plasticine, from this
problem we put a hole in the plasticine and put some part of the string into the plasticine hole.
This could’ve been inaccurate because of the different lengths used. Next time we can mark lines
on the string to create a fair test/trial.
Conclusion
Write a brief statement that addresses your hypotheses and summarises your results with reference to the
dependent and independent variables.
Our hypothesis was incorrect. We believed that the less plasticine we use, the slower it will fall which wasn’t the
case. What surprised us was our independent variable, size of plasticine, was 15g was faster than our 20g ball of
plasticine.
Once it has been checked, upload your completed investigation to iLearn J

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Year 8 Science Forces & Energy

Independent variable: Size of the ball of plasticine. ______________

Checkpoint 1: Show Miss Nash your work so far!

1. Get all the materials you need.

Risk Management strategy

Checkpoint 2: Show Miss Nash your work so far!

Size of the ball (g)

Checkpoint 3: Show Miss Nash your work so far!

Checkpoint 4: Show Miss Nash your work so far!

1. What trends or patterns did you observe during this experiment?

Checkpoint 5: Show Miss Nash your work so far!

Once it has been checked, upload your completed investigation to iLearn J

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