My PBL Project

Introduction: What is inertia, how is it related to Newton's 1st Law (the law of inertia), and how can it be demonstrated?

Materials: Rock, Glass, Hammer, Goggles, Penny, Round Cardboard, Glass Cup, Quarter, Yu-Gi-Oh Card, Water Bottle, and String.

Procedure: 1st Demonstration: We got placed a rock over a glass. Then we used a hammer to hit the rock. The rock took up all the energy and didn't transfer it to the glass. Then we broke the glass to show that glass can actually shatter. 2nd Demonstration: We placed a quarter over a round cardboard piece. We quickly grabbed the cardboard piece and the quarter fell straight on to a glass cup. This demonstration shows that an external force only affected the cardboard but not the quarter because of it's inertia. 3rd demonstration: Next we have two Yu-Gi-Oh cards which have a quarter/penny over them. They are then flicked and you can see that because the external force is acting on another object rather than the quarter itself it stays in place. One showed the penny falling into a glass cup the other showed the quarter staying on that one finger. 4th Demonstration: We first tied string around the battle cap of a water bottle. Then we pulled it ever so slightly. The string did not rip, but once we tugged at it rather quickly, the string tore. This demo showed that if you placed a constant force on the string it would not break but because of the water bottles inertia pulling at it very quickly caused it to break.

Scientific Principle: An object at rest will stay at rest, and an object in motion will stay in motion unless another force acts upon it. Inertia is one of the most important laws in science out there. It is important to recognize that without Newtons First Law of Motion inertia would not be a thing. This facilitates the understanding as to why something will keep on moving or will stay at rest when a force is trying to act upon it. We observe inertia every day, you just have to open your eyes and notice it.

Safety Regulations: Glass did break, but we made sure to pick up and dispose of it properly as soon as it broke. We made sure to have a teacher around the whole time in case anything serious would have happened.