WorksheetPremium

Jumping Tape in the Motion Lab: Testing Forces Across a Gap

Grade 8 fields practice: charged tape strips in a sports motion lab push and pull across a gap, and students judge the test design and fading charge.

Grade 8ScienceInteractive · Printable

Aligned toMS-PS2-5

Buy this worksheet: $1.50

Or unlock every Premium worksheet with Premium

PrintUnlock to print

Answer keyUnlock to see answers

Assign to classUnlock to assign with a class code

What’s included

Single worksheet
Auto-graded online
1 NGSS standard
Printable answer key
10 questions
Classroom-ready

Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 8
Subject: Science
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students use tape-strip data to provide evidence that charged objects exert forces on each other across a gap.
Students evaluate steps in an investigation design, including controls and repeated trials.

How to use

If you can, let students try the tape-strip test first; then use the tables to discuss which results count as evidence of a field and why the controls matter.

Curriculum

NGSS standard covered

MS-PS2-5

Investigate how fields let objects exert electric and magnetic forces on each other without touching.

Preview

OwlSheets.com

Name Date

Jumping Tape in the Motion Lab: Testing Forces Across a Gap

Use charged tape strips to find evidence of electric fields and judge the test design.

Test 1: Strips that push and pull

Read the lab notes and Table 1, then answer the questions.

Lab Notes: The Tape That Would Not Stay Put

1Selin Aydin, an eighth grader, spent a week of winter break shadowing lab technician Dr. Ruth Calloway at the Riverside Sports Medicine Center. In the center's motion lab, cameras track small shiny markers taped to runners' knees and ankles, and the computer turns each run into a moving stick figure that coaches use to spot injuries before they happen. The air in the lab was very dry, and Selin noticed that a strip of clear tape pulled quickly off the roll curled toward her arm before it touched her. Dr. Calloway explained that peeling tape can leave electric charge on it, and that scientists describe the space around a charged object as an electric field. She helped Selin plan an investigation of whether charged strips act on each other without touching.

2Selin pressed one 10 cm strip of tape onto the lab bench and pressed a second strip on top of it. When she pulled the pair off the bench and then ripped the strips apart quickly, the top strip (T) and the bottom strip (B) became charged. She also made N strips: strips peeled slowly and then checked near a bit of paper, which they did not lift.

3To test a pair, Selin hung one strip from a wooden dowel. She held the second strip by its folded end and moved it slowly toward the hanging strip along a wooden meter stick, starting 15 cm away. She recorded which way the hanging strip moved and how far apart the strips were when it first moved. She ran three trials for each pair with freshly made strips, finishing each trial within one minute of peeling, and the trials agreed within 1 cm. A clear plastic box around the dowel kept the air vent from blowing on the strips. The lab's humidity meter read 20% during every trial. Before starting, Selin listed what she would change, what she would keep the same and what she would measure, and Dr. Calloway checked the plan.

4In Test 2, Selin hung a T strip and waited before testing it with a fresh T strip, to see whether the push changed as time passed.