Introduction

Today, we will be investigating centripetal and centrifugal forces. The purpose of this investigation is to challenge you to investigate how we can use centripetal force (and its partner, centrifugal force) to pull on objects like coins and water. You will be making a number of devices to explore how these forces can help us to defy gravity! We also challenge you to explore this physics problem as a scientist would. What does this mean?

Scientific exploration is different than just playing around because it asks you to think about HOW you investigate. This means you need to do your investigation by observing what happens when you change a variable you have carefully chosen. This helps you to understand WHY something happens. Scientific exploration also means that you record WHAT you see or measure and that you record WHY you think it happens. The Young Scientist Journal that you are holding will help to guide your investigation and give you a place to record your observations, measurements and conclusions.

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