Do not adjust your computer. This is not a scene as depicted in an episode of ABC’s Modern Family. This is real life. Eggs will be dropped from various heights around your house. Trips to the hardware store will be necessary, or if you’re lucky, just a trip to the drugstore or even the attic. The EGG DROP EXPERIMENT is being assigned to Hamilton Southeastern eighth grade science students. When put together in a sentence, these three simple words can elicit quite a curious response.
After all, not a lot of positive imagery comes from dropping a raw egg nor is much experimentation required to find out what happens. But as many local parents know, this rite of passage for our eighth grade students becomes quite a brainteaser for the entire family, the entire Modern Family…
While the concept is simple, the restrictions governing the experiment are not. Students must design a carrier to safely protect a raw egg from the effects of being dropped 6.2 meters off the football field bleachers. Three separate layers of protection must be used with the most obvious padding items (cotton, marshmallows and bubble wrap) forbidden. The mass of the carrier also must be considered with points being awarded for both lighter and heavier weighted carriers.
Hamilton Southeastern Junior High (HSJH) completed their egg drop experiment in September. Eighth grade Science Teacher Eric Brown hopes the age old experiment will create a love of science in his students. “The scientific method is a way of thinking that can solve most any problem, even something as silly as how to protect a falling egg.” Brown who completed his own egg drop carrier in eighth grade admits that food products and the creative use of chicken wire are some shockingly effective insulators.
Dog feces in leaves did prove to be an effective egg carrier for one former Fishers Junior High (FJH) student. “It is certainly not permissible today,” assures FJH Science Teacher John Schwoeppe. He along with Riverside Junior High will be conducting their Egg Drop Experiment in the spring. Schwoeppe hopes that students see the relationship between developing their design and how it relates to Newton’s Laws of Motion.
“The most fun part about the egg drop was right after you dropped it. You go over to it and open it so slowly with anticipation, questioning whether it survived or broke,” offers HSJH eighth grade student Emma Hendricks, a student in Ms. Caitlin McKee’s class. Her egg did in fact survive the drop intact, and Hendricks was credited with the original idea of surrounding her egg in homemade Play-Doh!
Some of you are breathing a sigh of relief that those days are long past as your children have safely entered high school and beyond. Others may be smiling as memories resurface of the vain attempts to keep the egg in tact from the 6.2 meter drop. It can be a comedic but very educational experience quite worthy of a sitcom episode.
