Falling Objects (LabQuest)
Learn how to use a Vernier LabQuest and a Motion Detector to study the velocities of two different falling objects. This is a terrific lab for Middle School science and Physical Science.
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Learning Objectives
- Use a Motion Detector to measure position and velocity.
- Produce position vs. time and velocity vs. time graphs.
- Analyze and explain the results.
Download an Evaluation Lab
The evaulation labs contain background information, objectives, materials list, and step-by-step student instructions.
- Falling Objects Lab Book: Physical Science with Vernier
National Science Education Standard Correlations
| A.1.3.a Grades 5-8 |
The use of tools and techniques, including mathematics, will be guided by the question asked and the investigations students design. The use of computers for the collection, summary, and display of evidence is part of this standard. Students should be able to access, gather, store, retrieve, and organize data, using hardware and software designed for these purposes. |
| A.1.7.a Grades 5-8 |
With practice, students should become competent at communicating experimental methods, following instructions, describing observations, summarizing the results of other groups, and telling other students about investigations and explanations. |
| A.1.8.a Grades 5-8 |
Mathematics is essential to asking and answering questions about the natural world. Mathematics can be used to ask questions; to gather, organize, and present data; and to structure convincing explanations. |
| A.2.1 Grades 5-8 |
Different kinds of questions suggest different kinds of scientific investigations. Some investigations involve observing and describing objects, organisms, or events; some involve collecting specimens; some involve experiments; some involve seeking more information; some involve discovery of new objects and phenomena; and some involve making models. |
| B.2.1 Grades 5-8 |
The motion of an object can be described by its position, direction of motion, and speed. That motion can be measured and represented on a graph. |
| E.2.3 Grades 5-8 |
Science and technology are reciprocal. Science helps drive technology, as it addresses questions that demand more sophisticated instruments and provides principles for better instrumentation and technique. Technology is essential to science, because it provides instruments and techniques that enable observations of objects and phenomena that are otherwise unobservable due to factors such as quantity, distance, location, size, and speed. Technology also provides tools for investigations, inquiry, and analysis. |
| G.2.1 Grades 5-8 |
Scientists formulate and test their explanations of nature using observation, experiments, and theoretical and mathematical models. Although all scientific ideas are tentative and subject to change and improvement in principle, for most major ideas in science, there is much experimental and observational confirmation. Those ideas are not likely to change greatly in the future. Scientists do and have changed their ideas about nature when they encounter new experimental evidence that does not match their existing explanations. |
Reprinted with permission from National Science Education Standards © 1996 by the National Academy of Sciences, Courtesy of the National Academies Press, Washington, D.C.
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Vernier Software & Technology
13979 SW Millikan Way
Beaverton, OR 97005-2886
13979 SW Millikan Way
Beaverton, OR 97005-2886