Ball Drop Investigation

4th Grade ScienceKinetic and Potential Energy3 pages

About this worksheet

A ball, a meter stick taped to a wall and four drop heights make up this 3-page 4th grade energy investigation. Students drop the ball from 25, 50, 75 and 100 centimeters, record the bounce height in three trials and find each average. They plot the averages on a line graph and answer three questions about the pattern, potential and kinetic energy, and why the ball never returns to its starting height. Page 3 has sample data and answers. It supports NGSS 4-PS3-1 and 4-PS3-2.

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Ball Drop Investigation: Kinetic and Potential Energy - page 1

Ball Drop Investigation: Kinetic and Potential Energy - page 2

Ball Drop Investigation: Kinetic and Potential Energy - page 3

Curriculum objectives covered

4-PS3-1

“Use evidence to construct an explanation relating the speed of an object to the energy of that object.”

Question 4 asks students to link a higher drop to more energy and a faster hit on the floor.

4-PS3-2

“Make observations to provide evidence that energy can be transferred from place to place by sound, light, heat, and electric currents.”

The key for question 5 names sound and heat as places some of the ball's energy goes.

What's inside this worksheet

Steps and Data Collection

Six numbered steps beside a small drawing of a meter stick and a ball, then a table with a row for each drop height and columns for three trials and an average. Students round each average to the nearest whole centimeter.

Graph Your Results

A blank line graph with drop height from 0 to 100 along the bottom and average bounce height from 0 to 70 up the side, in steps of 10.

Analyze the Pattern

Three questions with writing lines: what pattern the data shows, why a higher drop gives a higher bounce, and why the ball never bounces back to its starting height.

Answers

A sample table (averages 15, 31, 46 and 60 cm), the finished graph and model answers that use potential, kinetic, sound and heat energy.

How teachers use it

Groups of three

Have one student drop, one read the meter stick at eye level and one record. Bounce height is hard to judge alone.

Set up the wall

Tape the meter sticks up before the lesson with the 0 mark on the floor. A crooked stick is the usual reason for odd data.

Use the odd trial

When one trial sits far from the other two, ask the group to redo it and say why it differed. That gives the average some meaning.

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