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 Student Organizer
Activity Two
Pencil rolling experiment
- First, record your hypothesis to the following question: If
you roll a pencil from an incline, will it roll twice as far as
a pencil rolled from half as high up the incline? For example,
if you roll a pencil from 2 feet up an incline, will it roll twice
as far as a pencil rolled from one foot up the incline?
- Conduct experiment and record data in table below. (Or, feel
free to design your own data collection chart.)
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Distance traveled Roll 1 |
Distance traveled Roll 2 |
Distance traveled Roll 3 |
Distance traveled Roll 4 |
Distance traveled Roll 5 |
Average distance rolled |
| Pencil rolled from 12-inches |
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| Pencil rolled from 24-inches |
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Note: To calculate the average, add up the measurements from rolls
1,2,3,4, and 5, and then divide by the number of measurements
you’ve added (in each case, 5). See example below.
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Distance traveled Roll 1 |
Distance traveled Roll 2 |
Distance traveled Roll 3 |
Distance traveled Roll 4 |
Distance traveled Roll 5 |
Average distance rolled |
| Pencil rolled from 12-inches |
3 in. |
3.5 in. |
3 in. |
2.5 in. |
3 in. |
3 + 3.5 + 3 + 2.5 + 3=15 15/5=3
So the average is 3 inches. |
- After you’ve finished recording your data, answer the following
questions:
- What question were you trying to answer?
- What was the independent variable in your experiment? (The
independent variable is the variable you are changing.)
- What variables were you controlling? Did you have trouble
controlling these variables? If so, were you able to overcome
your trouble?
- What were some of the extraneous variables in this experiment
(the ones you had a hard time controlling or couldn’t
control)?
- What was the dependent variable? Did it change based solely
on the value of the independent variable? If not, what else
might have caused it to change?
- Do you think your results would be the same if you had only
rolled the pencil once from each position? Why or why not?
- Did you use a control group? Why or why not?
- Based on your
data and analysis, what is the answer to the question being
investigated? Do you think you gathered enough evidence to
answer the question posed at the beginning of this experiment:
If you roll a pencil from an incline, will it roll twice as
far as a pencil rolled from half as high up the incline? If
so, answer the question. If not, explain why you don’t
think your data can answer the question.
Extension:
What new questions did the pencil-rolling experiment raise?
For example, did the angle of the board cause a more significant
difference between the distance the pencil rolled from different
starting points? Is there any mathematical relationship you
can determine between the height from which the pencil is
rolled and how far it is rolled (e.g., the pencil always goes
twice as far as it is high…)?
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