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Balanced vs. Unbalanced Forces

January 29, 2021

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FAB 5 students have been learning about gravity in Science.  Today, the students participated in a science demonstration showing how forces can be balanced or unbalanced and how gravity affects a falling object.  Students used a plastic cup, metal pie plate, toilet paper tube, and an egg in the demonstration.  First, students filled the cup half full of water.  Then they placed the pie plate on top of the cup and centered the toilet paper tube on the pie plate.  Finally, the students placed the egg on the paper tube.  This showed the forces in balance.  Students then hit the pie plate with the palm of their hand making the forces unbalanced.  The egg landed in the cup of water due to the force of gravity. 

To change the demonstration, students replaced the toilet paper tube with a paper towel tube, which is made of the same material and is the same shape but is longer than the toilet paper tube.  Most students did not think that the egg would land in the cup, but it did!  Even though the egg was farther away from the cup, the force of gravity acted on the egg when the pie plate was removed.  

After completing the demonstrations, the FAB 5 students recorded their observations in their Science Notebook.  

(Thanks to 5W for the hint to boil the eggs before doing the demonstration.  It saved us a lot of clean-up!)

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