📄 Falling paper shapes: the whole packet

📄 Falling paper shapes · 1st–4th grade · 1 day of testing · free · 30 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 the shape of the paper, then how long the paper takes to fall will ________________, because _____________________________________________

What I think will happen, in my own words:

4 levels × 3 tries at each = 12 tries in all. If anything you keep the same changes, you won't know which change made the difference.

What I need

• 📄 Paper: 4 sheets, all the same
• 🩹 Masking tape, to mark lines
• ⏱️ A stopwatch or a kitchen timer

Be safe: 🧍 Drop from standing: never climb

1. Stand against a wall, reach up high, and stick masking tape where your hand is.
2. Take four sheets of paper, all the same. Leave one flat.
3. Fold one sheet again and again until it is a small square.
4. Crumple one sheet loosely, and squeeze the last sheet into a tight ball.
5. Hold the flat sheet with its bottom edge at the tape. Stand on the floor and never climb.
6. Let go as a helper starts the stopwatch, and stop it when the paper lands.
7. Write the time in your table, then drop it two more times.
8. Do three drops with each of the other shapes, from the same tape mark.
9. Find the middle number for each shape and draw a bar graph.

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

I changed: Paper shape   I measured: how long the paper takes to fall (seconds)

MY GRAPH (a bar graph: paper shape along the bottom, seconds 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: crumple the paper tighter and tighter in four steps, and graph the fall time for each.

1. What made you want to ask this question? Say something like: I wanted to know: does crumpled paper fall faster than flat paper?
2. What did you think would happen, and why? Say something like: I thought changing the shape of the paper would change how long the paper takes to fall, and I wrote down why.
3. What did you change, and what did you measure? Say something like: I changed the shape of the paper (Flat sheet, Folded small, Loosely crumpled, Tight ball) and measured how long the paper takes to fall in seconds.
4. What did you keep the same, and why does that matter? Say something like: I kept sheets of the same paper, all the same size and dropping from the same height the same, so only the shape of the paper was different.
5. How many times did you test it? Say something like: 3 times at each of my 4 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: Flat sheet and Tight ball 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: crumple the paper tighter and tighter in four steps, and graph the fall time for each.