Creating Craters

This lesson allows pupils to create impact craters in layered dry materials. Pupils can perform controlled experiments by varying the velocity or mass of crater-forming objects and observing and measuring their effects.

Aims

• To give pupils an opportunity to make predictions, isolate and manipulate variables, and collect data in order to test their hypotheses.
• To encourage pupils to use graphs, tables and diagrams to present their data.
• To give pupils an understanding of the relationship between velocity, mass and kinetic energy, and the effects of these variables on crater formation.

Objectives

Pupils will:

• manipulate the variables of velocity and mass to investigate how these affect the formation of craters.
• identify various structures caused by the cratering process.
• recognise the conditions that control the size and appearance of impact craters.
• state the relationship between the size of the crater, size of the projectile, and velocity.
• demonstrate the transfer of energy in the cratering process.

Equipment (Per Group)

• One set of projectiles either SET A or SET B

SET A: four marbles, ball bearings, or similar of identical size and weight

SET B: three spheres of equal size but different materials so that they have different mass

• Ruler and metre rule
• Digital balance
• Data Chart