James Ulrich, Ed Lasinski, and Nick Gallina test the acceleration of a marble (Photo courtesy of Clark Public Schools)
CLARK — When the students walked into their science classes at Carl H. Kumpf Middle School in Clark, they were asked a question. The question asked, “How does the slope of a ramp affect the acceleration of an object rolling down the ramp?” Students wrote hypotheses to explain how changing the slope will affect the acceleration. Most students said, “If the slope gets steeper, then the acceleration of the marble will increase.”
Students used two meter sticks as a ramp for their marbles. They used stopwatches, and did four trials for different heights of ramps. They recorded their information, and came to the conclusion that most hypotheses were correct. The acceleration of the marble did increase as the ramp got steeper.
