⛰️ Hill slope and washed-away soil: the whole packet

⛰️ Hill slope and washed-away soil · 4th–8th grade · 1 day of testing · free · 60 minutes a sitting

My days, if the fair is 14 days away

Count back from your fair day and write in each date. Fewer days than this? The jobs share days, in this order; nothing is skipped.

Dates from my teacher

• My question is due
• Testing starts
• My results table and graph are due
• My board is due

In this packet

1. 🗓️ My project plan
2. 💭 My hypothesis
3. 🧺 Change, measure, keep the same
4. 🪜 My steps
5. 📊 My results
6. 📓 My logbook
7. ✅ My conclusion
8. ✂️ Board titles to cut out
9. 🏅 The judge's questions and my certificate

If I change how steep the hill is, then how deep the washed-away mud is in the cup after 15 minutes will ________________, because _____________________________________________

What I think will happen, in my own words:

3 levels × 3 tries at each = 9 tries in all. If anything you keep the same changes, you won't know which change made the difference.

What I need

• 📦 A shoebox: a shoebox: you use its lid
• 🥈 Foil
• 🩹 Masking tape, to mark lines
• 📚 Some books: 3, all about the same thickness
• 🟫 Soil dug from the garden or yard: 9 cups, dry
• 🥛 A measuring cup
• 🚰 Water from the tap
• 🥣 A big bowl: a big one
• 🥛 Clear plastic cups, all the same size: 9 tall ones
• 📏 A ruler

Be safe: 🌳 Outside · 🧼 Wash your hands after · 🧽 A bit messy

1. Grown-up: A grown-up cuts the rim off one short end of a shoebox lid, to make a slide with an open end.
2. Press foil into the lid and tape it down, so water runs along the foil and not into the cardboard.
3. Work outside or at the sink: rest the slide on a counter or table, its open end over a big bowl.
4. Prop the high end of the slide on one book.
5. Spread one cup of dry garden soil over the top half of the slide, and pat it flat.
6. Pour one cup of water slowly onto the top of the soil while you count to ten.
7. Pour the muddy water from the bowl into a tall clear cup, and label it with the number of books.
8. Do two more runs on one book, with fresh soil and a wiped-out slide each time.
9. Prop the slide on two books and do three runs, then on three books and do three runs.
10. Leave all nine cups still for 15 minutes so the mud can settle.
11. Stand a ruler against each cup, measure how thick the mud is on the bottom in mm, and write it down.
12. Muddy water is never for drinking: pour it onto the garden when you've finished.
13. Find the mean mud depth for each slope and draw a line graph.
14. Wash your hands after touching the soil.

Write each number in your results table the moment you measure it.

I changed: Slope   I measured: how deep the washed-away mud is in the cup after 15 minutes (mm)

MY GRAPH (a line graph: slope along the bottom, mm up the side)

What I noticed: ______________________________________________

Write something every day you work on it, even the days you only gather things. More days? The three-page logbook prints from peabody.kids/science-fair/templates/logbook.

My hypothesis was ☐ right ☐ partly right ☐ not right.

I know because my numbers show:

What surprised me, or what might have gone wrong (7th and up):

Next time I would test:

Idea: Change a second thing: keep the steepest slope and change the soil to sand, potting soil and garden soil, and graph the mud depth for each.

1. What made you want to ask this question? Say something like: I wanted to know: does a steeper hill wash away more soil?
2. What did you think would happen, and why? Say something like: I thought changing how steep the hill is would change how deep the washed-away mud is in the cup after 15 minutes, and I wrote down why.
3. What did you change, and what did you measure? Say something like: I changed how steep the hill is (1 book high, 2 books high, 3 books high) and measured how deep the washed-away mud is in the cup after 15 minutes in mm.
4. What did you keep the same, and why does that matter? Say something like: I kept the same amount of dry garden soil, patted down the same way and one cup of water poured at the same speed, in the same place the same, so only how steep the hill is was different.
5. How many times did you test it? Say something like: 3 times at each of my 3 levels, and I found the middle number.
6. What did you find out? Show me in your numbers. Say something like: Look at my table: 1 book high and 3 books high gave different numbers, and here's the pattern.
7. Was your hypothesis right? How do you know? Say something like: My numbers show whether I was right, partly right or not, and I can show you where.
8. Did anything go wrong, or surprise you? Say something like: One try was odd, so I did it again and wrote it in my logbook.
9. If you did it again, what would you change or test next? Say something like: I'd change a second thing: keep the steepest slope and change the soil to sand, potting soil and garden soil, and graph the mud depth for each.