Investigating pendulums

1. Investigating factors affecting
the swing of a pendulum.
 Target
 To perform a science investigation and
to learn how to write up the investigation
report

4. Plan: what I could change
 The length of the pendulum
 The length of the pendulum swing
 The mass of the pendulum

5. What I could measure
 How long it takes for the pendulum to
complete one swing.
 The mass of the pendulum.
 The distance the pendulum swings.

6. What I will change
 The length of the pendulum.

7. What I will measure
 How long it takes for the pendulum to
complete 10 swings.

8. Keep the same
 The mass of the pendulum.

9. Prediction
 Add your own prediction here – it
could be-
 The longer the pendulum the (longer /
shorter) the time for one complete
swing.

10. Reason for prediction
 Add you own ideas here…..

11. Plan – set up a pendulum and measure the length of the
string. Time 10 swings and work out the time for one swing.
Change the length and repeat the experiment.
Retort stand
Funnel
Beaker
Stop clock or watch

12. Pendulum results
Length of
pendulum Time for 10 swings Time for 1 swing

13. Analysis
 In this section you have to say what you
have found out from your results – give
detailed explanations and try to give
reasons why things happened.

14. What the graph shows
 The graph for my experiment showed
the length of the pendulum plotted
against the time for one swing.

15. Explaining the change

16. Evaluation
 In this section you have to say how
good (or bad) your investigation was –
also suggest how reliable your results
are and ways of improving or extending
the investigation

17. Prediction
 My prediction was (correct / incorrect)
the reason for this was

18. Unusual or unexpected
readings

19. Reasons for unexpected
results
 The reason why the unexpected result
was measured was

20. Reliable or unreliable
 The results appear to be

21. Extending the investigation
 I could extend this investigation by
taking more readings at a a wider range
of temperatures.
 I could also try to use different types of
funnels with different width gaps at the
bottom.