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Are the crows minimizing their work by dropping
whelk as they dos? The amount of work depends upon
the height of the drop and the number of times the
crow has to fly to this height. To answer the question,
the relationship between the height of the drop
and the number of drops is needed.
Reto Zach *
conducted the following experiment. He repeatedly
dropped a whelk from a fixed height until the whelk
broke. He recorded the height and the number of
drops required. He repeated this for several different
heights. The dropping of whelk can be simulated
by dropping peanuts or other objects. Peanuts are
a good choice because they are relatively inexpensive
and fairly uniform.
If you do not wish to
conduct an experiment to gather your own data, then
use the sample data provided.
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The
Experiment: To model the dropping
of whelks, get a meterstick and a cup of whole,
blanched peanuts that have been removed from their
shells. Start with a height of 15 cm. Repeatedly
drop a peanut until it breaks into two pieces.
Record the number of drops needed for the peanut to
break. Repeat this experiment for at least eight
peanuts at this same height. Find the mean number
of drops required to break open a peanut. Repeat
this experiment for heights of 20, 25, 30, 35, 40,
50 and 60 centimeters. You may want to pool your
data with data obtained by other groups in the
class. Record the data in a table similar to the
following.
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