1. Y E A R 8 – F O R C E S
AIR RESISTANCE

2. AIM & HYPOTHESIS
• AIM: To determine
what size parachute will
fall the slowest.
• HYPOTHESIS: Write
down your hypothesis.

3. BACKGROUND INFORMATION
• Air resistance is a type of friction between air and
another material. This is what makes parachute
work. If a person were to skydive without a
parachute, they’d push the air molecules out of the
way very easily, so the air wouldn’t be able to do
much to slow the person down.
• But if the person is attached to a parachute, then the
parachute will run into lots of air molecules, and
especially if it’s curved to be higher up in the
middle, it will be very hard for the air molecules to
get out of the way. If they can’t get out of the
way, they will slow the parachute (and hence the
person) down.
• In this experiment, we will look at how the size of a
parachute affects the time it takes to fall.

4. EQUIPMENT
• Plastic bag
• Scissors
• String
• Rubber stopper
• Stopwatch
• Ruler

5. RISK ASSESSMENT
Risk Injury Prevention
Fill out a risk assessment for your experiment

6. METHOD
1. Cut out a large square
from your plastic bag
or material about
10x10 cm.
2. Trim the edges so it
looks like an octagon
(an eight sided shape).
3. Cut a small hole near
the edge of each side.

7. METHOD
4. Attach 8 pieces of string
of the same length to
each of the holes.
5. Tie the pieces of string
to the rubber stopper.
6. Use a chair or find a
high spot to drop your
parachute and time how
long it takes to fall to
the ground.

8. METHOD
7. Repeat experiment
step 6, 3 times.
8. Repeat experiment
with a 20x20 cm
parachute and a 30x30
cm parachute.

9. RESULTS
Parachute Size Trial 1
(secs)
Trial 2
(secs)
Trial 3
(secs)
Average
Time (secs)
1
2
3

10. DISCUSSION
• How does a parachute work?
• Do bigger parachutes work better than smaller
parachutes? Explain why this is the case.

11. CONCLUSION
Write your conclusion here.