Create egg drop soup. Teachers first set up eggs that are held up above cups of water with a piece of cardboard and cardboard tubes. Learners try to determine a way to get the eggs to drop into the cups. Using a broom, the instructor snaps the handle against the cardboard sliding it and the tubes out of the way, and pupils watch the eggs drop directly into the cups.

Concepts

inertia, kinetic energy, potential energy, gravity, newton's first law of motion

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Additional Tags

science

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Instructional Ideas

• After seeing the activity, have the class brainstorm other tricks that use the same principle, such as pulling a table cloth out from under dishes

Classroom Considerations

• Best done as a demonstration as opposed to having groups of class members doing the same activity
• Requires understanding of forces and kinetic and potential energy

Pros

• Includes hints to make sure the activity works
• Contains a scientific explanation of what happens in terms of forces

Cons

• None