Weekly blog by Millie B and Poppy

Paper-copter seeds

In Science, we have been learning about pollinating flowers. Today, we looked at the importance of seeds falling far from their parent tree, as if they fall right underneath they would not have enough space, water or light. It's vital seeds travel far enough away from the parent tree so they can get each element they need. The wind, animals and humans all help spread the seeds, this is called dispersal. Seeds that spin, glide or float to the ground gives them time for the wind to catch them so they can drift gently away from the parent plant on the breeze. Today, we replicated seeds by creating paper-copters. 

 

We were challenged to investigate a question by setting up a fair test, we made paper-copters. The class split up into 6 group of 4. each group changed different variable:

  • 2 groups looked at weight
  • 2 groups looked at size
  • 2 groups looked at materials

We were trying to discover which paper-copter stayed in the air the longest, by dropping each copter from the same height and carefully timing them. Then we recorded them onto a sheet.

Our group tested different materials, however, we kept these materials the same:

  • size
  • shape/quality
  • height
  • weight
  • how we drop them
  • accurate timing

Our slowest one to hit the ground was the tin foil, it took 2.31 seconds. In the size group, the slowest was the medium one, with a time of 1.42 seconds and in the weight group, the slowest was the one with 2 paperclips attached with a time of 1.56 seconds. At a group, we had to chose what we thought was the slowest to land and we had a little competition ... take a look below!