Expert: Sue Kayton Date: 3/18/2008 Subject: egg dropping
Question QUESTION: Please recommend an experiment for a 2nd grader to do. It requires dropping an egg from a 5ft ladder without the egg breaking.
ANSWER: The usual egg drop "experiment" is to use common items found around the house to build something to hold the egg to protect it. Then you drop the egg. This isn't really an experiment. It's a design project. Design something to meet the requirements.
Contrast this with an experiment in which you try something over and over to see what results you get. An example would be milk a cow to see how much milk you get. Then feed the cow different kinds of food to see which one of them makes it give more milk.
You can't really repeat the egg drop experiment since the item gets destroyed when you test it.
If this doesn't answer your question, please be more specific about what you are asking.
-Sue Kayton
San Francisco, California, USA
---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------
QUESTION: Please recommend a simple project. We found out yesterday & it is due tomorrow. Thank you
Answer It sounds like you are asking for a simple science experiment for a second grader, but it doesn't have to be an egg drop.
Here are some fun ideas.
1) Laundry detergent experiment. Get a bunch of white rags. Make stains on the rags with chocolate, coffee, wine, ketchup, grass, or other stuff that makes really bad stains. Use a permanent marking pen to label each rag so you know which stain it has, or else tear the rag into a distinctive pattern so you know which is which. Treat them all with the same stain remover (like Spray-and-Wash) and then wash them all in the same detergent. You can skip the stain remover if you like. See which stains come out and which ones don't. Or you could use the stain remover on some and not on others to see if it helps remove the stains.
2) blind taste test. Get a bottle of Pepsi and a bottle of Coke (or use Sprite and 7-up). Get a bunch of kids. Pour a bit of Pepsi into a glass, and a bit of Coke into a glass. Label the glasses so you know which is which, but the kids don't. Have them taste the two and see if they can tell the difference. Present your data as a table or chart. Or use Oreo cookies and the generic store brand of cookies.
3) Distracted counting. Does music distract you and make it harder to think? Have a person (kid or adult) start at 20 and count backwards to zero. Do this in a quiet room with no music, yelling kids, or other distractions. Count how many mistakes the person makes. Now turn on loud music, the TV set, or have noisy kids make noise in the room. Have them count backwards again, and count the number of mistakes. Do this with a bunch of different people. Does the noise make them make more mistakes?
4) Bird seed experiment. If you live in an area that has wild birds, get a bag of bird seed at the local grocery store. Sprinkle some of the bird seed on the ground outdoors near a window. Get a bird book from the library with pictures of birds in your area. Watch and see what kind of birds come to eat the seeds. Take photos if you have a camera. If you want to be fancier, separate the seeds by type and see which birds prefer which types of seeds. If you can't get birdseed, buy unsalted unroasted (raw) sunflower seeds.
5) Salt melting snow and ice on sidewalk. If you live in a snowy area and have snow or ice on your front walkway, sprinkle salt on part of it, and sprinkle black gravel on part of it, and leave part of it alone. Which part melts faster?
