A Soft Landing - Egg Drop!

Sixth graders at Bell Manor learned that landing a spacecraft on the moon or another planet is difficult due to a "thin" atmosphere and the pull of gravity.  A science activity they used to illustrate this problem was an Egg Drop.

 The students were asked to try to create a soft landing.  The students were divided into groups and asked to research how on "Drop Day" they could make an egg fall safely from the top bleachers in Pennington Field! The students had to come up with a way to package a raw egg (which was placed in a plastic bag in case of an unsuccessful landing) so it would not break from the fall.   Parachutes could not be used because in a factual soft landing, there is no air or very little air available to operate them.  The students had great fun watching the eggs drop over the edge of the stadium and guessing if the egg made the fall safely.  There were quite a few groups that made the landing successfully!!!