Praxis: Pendulum swing
By Medicine Hat News on March 30, 2019.
We’ve been pretty lucky this week as the weather has been absolutely beautiful! I see children outside playing, people going for walks, I think even my dog has a spring in his step these days. Well, this week I have been thinking and if you know me at all, you know I’m always thinking about science. Of course as I see the children on the playground it makes me think about how they could be learning about science as they play. Let’s investigate further. *Remember to ask an adult before doing this experiment. Materials – timer – playground swing – a couple of science helpers – measuring tape – masking tape Procedure 1. Take the seat of the swing in your hands and move three steps backwards. Mark this spot with the tape. 2. Have your science helper get ready with the stopwatch/timer. 3. Once again, take the seat of the wing and go to the marked spot. Release the swing. Count the number of times it goes back and forth in 10 seconds. 4. This time, have the other science helper sit on the seat of the swing. 5. Have your science helper pull the swing back to the marked line while sitting on it. 6. Make sure the science helper with the timer is ready. 7. Count them down, release the swing and start timing for 10 seconds. 8. Count the number of times your science helper swings back and forth. What is going on? To my amazement and likely yours, you should have discovered that the swing went back and forth the same number of times; when empty and with someone on it. How is this possible? In order to better understand this, think of a pendulum. A pendulum stops at the highest position of the swing before it begins the downward swing regardless of weight. This is exactly what happened in your experiment. The weight did not affect the experiment at all. Patty Rooks is senior scientific consultant at PRAXIS, “Connecting Science To The Community.” Contact Praxis at praxis@praxismh.ca, http://www.praxismh.ca, Tweet or follow us @PraxisMedHat, or friend us on Facebook. 21-20
