

Today, Class 4 were learning about air resistance. They were split into groups and each group had to make a parachute. Group 1’s parachute diameter was 20cm, group 2 was 30cm, group 3 was 40cm, group 4 was 50cm and group 5’s was 60cm. They then had 4 strings of 40 cm long to attach to the parachute. At the end of the string was a large paperclip used as a weight.
We found out that the larger the parachute, the slower it fell to the floor. The children told me this was because of air resistance (the larger the surface area of the chute, more air resistance would be reacting against gravity). We decided that in this instance, air resistance is helpful and someone on the end of a parachute would want to descend slowly and safely so they can land without any broken bones.