This week, Year 5 have been learning about air resistance! Here’s our post to get you up to speed on our sprinting experiment. Hope it’s not a drag!
We had three participants who first ran from the gate to the gazebo and back without the parachute on (shown here by our fantastic photographers) and these were timed.
The same people ran again but this time with a parachute attached to their back and timed again.
All three participants were much slower on their second run. Challenge your child to explain the science behind it!
Our participants said:
- “It felt like someone was pulling you back when you were running!”
- “It felt like someone lightly tugging you as you were running.”
- “The parachute run was harder. The faster you go, the more the wind pulls you back.”
- “It was quite exciting to see how fast they went.”
- “The parachute run had more air resistance because the air was getting trapped in the parachute and slowing it down.”
- “It was nice seeing how quick they were and seeing how much difference the parachute made.”
- “I was kind of surprised and kind of not surprised. I was surprised that it made it that much slower but I did know that it would make them slower.”