Marble In The Sand Lab

Lau, Madison
09.10.17 PD : 07
Cockett
Science

Introduction :
The purpose of this lab was to see if a marble dropped from different distances would affect the width of the crater it makes in the sand. This experiment is important to the related science content because it shows how different impacts from an object can affect things when dropped, such as how big or small a crater is. According to the article, “Why do some meteorites create such huge craters?”, Gemma Lavender explained that a meteorite would not have to be large in order to have a big impact on the ground. Instead, the speed of a meteorite falling, the angle a meteorite is falling from, and the material a meteorite is crashing into will ultimately determine the size of a crater.

Place the beginning mark of the 6-inch ruler on the side of the container where the sand meets. Drop the big marble once again about 4-inches from the surface of the sand.
Pull out the marble carefully from the sand.
Measure how wide the crater is with the 6-inch ruler and record the width of the crater.
Flatten out sand by softly pounding the bottom of the container on a flat surface until the sand is smooth and flat.
Place the beginning mark of the 6-inch ruler on the side of the container where the sand meets. Drop the small marble about 2-inches away from the surface of the sand.
Pull out the marble carefully from the sand.
Measure how wide the crater is with your 6-inch ruler and record the width of the crater.
Flatten out sand by softly pounding the bottom of the container on a flat surface until the sand is smooth and flat
Drop the small marble once again about 4-inches away from the surface of the sand.
Pull out the marble carefully from the sand.
For the final time, measure how wide the crater is with your 6-inch ruler and record the width of the crater.
You are now done with the experiment !!

Data Table

The independent/manipulated variable of the experiment was the two different sizes of a marble and the dependent/responding variable was the diameter of the crater. The data in the bar graph shows that when a marble is dropped from a higher distance, no matter what the size of the marble is, the crater outcome will have a wider width rather than a marble that is dropped from a lower distance which will give you a smaller width. If there was another trial to take place in the experiment, a marble dropped at a high distance would still have an outcome of a bigger crater than a marble dropped from a small distance.If the marble was dropped from a different height, the crater width would still come out larger when dropped from a higher distance. There were no unexpected results in the graph. A possible error that could have happened while the experiment was taking place would have been setting up the ruler where the top of the container is and not where the sand meets, which would throw off the measurements of the