At a glance
Egg Drop Parachute is a 60-minute workshop for grades 1 to 6. The challenge: keep an egg hanging from its parachute and dropped from a height from smashing into the pan. Students experiment with gravity, potential energy turning into kinetic energy and cushioning, using plastic eggs.
Were you planning on an omelette for dinner tonight? Mmm, delicious!
But here is your challenge: find a way to keep your egg, hanging from its parachute and dropped from a height, from smashing into a frying pan!
Your physicists will need creativity and teamwork to save dinner!
Fighting gravity, turning potential energy into kinetic energy, energy transfer and cushioning…
So much to learn, and fun guaranteed!
P.S. Our eggs are plastic…
Learning goals (elementary)
- Describe and test the effect of gravity on a (plastic) egg in free fall.
- Understand gravitational potential energy.
- Discover ways to counter the force of gravity (protecting the egg).
Learning goals (secondary)
- Describe, qualitatively, the relationship between a body’s potential energy, its mass, gravitational acceleration and its displacement.
- Define gravitation as a force of mutual attraction between bodies.
