Marshmallow Catapults! - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

1 / 9
About This Presentation
Title:

Marshmallow Catapults!

Description:

Marshmallow Catapults! Ever imagine yourself back in the middle ages fending off dragons while hurtling giant marshmallows with powerful catapults at the walls of an ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

Number of Views:216
Avg rating:3.0/5.0
Slides: 10
Provided by: tsad4
Category:

less

Transcript and Presenter's Notes

Title: Marshmallow Catapults!


1
Marshmallow Catapults!
2
  • Ever imagine yourself back in the middle ages
    fending off dragons while hurtling giant
    marshmallows with powerful catapults at the walls
    of an evil castle in order to rescue your fellow
    villagers? What was that? Hurtling marshmallows??
    Well, we dont want to hurt anyone, so
    marshmallows it is!

3
  • Actually, marshmallows and catapults can be
    useful tools for teaching basic principles in
    math and science including
  • Graphing
  • Interpolation
  • Extrapolation
  • Dependent Independent variables
  • Controlling variables
  • Collecting presenting data

4
Lets look at the setup
  • Catapult
  • Launch lever
  • Artillery
  • Marking powder

5
Research questions What is the relationship
between tension applied to the rubberbands ( of
turns) and projectile distance?What are the
differences between projectile distances of the
small and large marshmallows?
6
Variables
  • What is the independent variable?
  • What is the dependent variable?
  • What variables need to be controlled?

7
Issues to consider
  • How many turns will you test? (Try at least 5
    different settings)
  • How many trials should you run for each setting?
  • Will you throw out any data?

8
Tasks
  • Perform your catapult investigations.
  • Create data tables to record your data.
  • Create appropriate graphs.

9
  • How could we use this experience to introduce
    interpolation and extrapolation?
  • What are some possible follow-up questions to
    engage your students critical thinking?
  • What would happen to projectile distances if the
    marshmallows were wet?
  • At what point does increasing tension actually
    reduce projectile distances? Why does this occur?
  • What are the advantages and disadvantages of
    pooling all of the class data?
  • How could the catapults be modified to make them
    more effective?
Write a Comment
User Comments (0)
About PowerShow.com