Balancing a Paper Crayfish

Big Idea: Force and Balance    

Focus question: How can we balance our crayfish?

Prediction: 

·        If we put a clothespin on the tail of the paper crayfish and balance it from its tail, it will balance.

·        If we put a clothespin on the nose of the paper crayfish and balance it from its nose, it will balance.

·        If we put a clothespin on the side of a crayfish and balance it on its side, it will not balance.

Planning: 

Materials:  clothespins, paper crayfish, journal, pencil

First, we brainstormed how we would balance our crayfish with the given materials. Then, we decided to balance our crayfish with a clothespin on its side. Then, we balanced our crayfish with a clothespin on its tail. Finally, we balanced our crayfish with a clothespin on its nose.

Data:

How did you balance the fish?	How did you balance with clothespins?	What happened?
Side	Side	Fell Over-did not balance
Tail	Tail	Stood-balanced
Nose	Nose	Fell; stood-both

Claims and evidence:

We claim that if we put a clothespin on the tail of the paper crayfish and balance it from its tail, it will balance. We know this to be true because we did this during our investigation and the crayfish balanced. We claim that if we put a clothespin on the nose of the paper crayfish and balance it from its nose, it will balance. We know this to be true because we did this during our investigation and it balanced. We also learned that if you do not put the clothespin directly in the center of the nose, it will not balance and fall over. We claim that if we put a clothespin on the side of a crayfish and balance it on its side, it will not balance. We know this to be true because we performed this during our investigation and the crayfish fell over. We confirmed our predictions, but learned that you must put the clothespin center to the object to balance as well.

Conclusion:

We learned that something is balanced when it stays in position on its own. We learned that the clothespins work like weights and can pull the object down if not balanced. We learned that when we put the clothespins low and center of the object, it helps balance our crayfish. We also learned that the weight must be equal on either side to balance.

Reflection/ Questions:

We learned that we can balance our crayfish on its nose and tail as long as our clothespin is centered and low on the object. We learned that we could not balance our crayfish on its side.

·       What else can we learn about gravity and balancing objects?

·       How does this information apply to our lives?

Literacy Connections:

Balancing Act by Ellen Stoll Walsh

Balances (Science Tools) by Adele D. Richardson

Balancing Act (Go-for-gold gymnasts, The ) by Dominique Moceanu