Gravity: What Goes UP, Must come DOWN!

1. What is a force?

• A. a living thing

• B. a push or pull

• C. a kind of energy

• D. a type of chemical

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2. A skydiver jumps out of a plane. He falls downward at a very fast speed. When he opens his parachute, he slows down. He falls at a safer pace until he lands. What force pulled the skydiver to the ground?

• A. gravity

• B. air pushing

• C. air resistance

• D. parachute pulling

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3. In baseball, a fly ball happens when a player hits the ball high into the air. The player on the other team must wait for it to come down to catch it. Imagine that there was suddenly no gravity on Earth. How would a fly ball be different?

• A. The fly ball would not go as high.

• B. The fly ball would stick to the bat.

• C. The fly ball would never come down.

• D. The fly ball would come down more slowly.

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4. The space shuttle has a fuel tank and two rocket boosters. The rocket boosters give off a blast of hot gases. This blast helps launch the shuttle into space. The picture shows the rocket boosters during a launch. Why are rocket boosters needed to send the shuttle into space?

• A. They carry equipment inside of them.

• B. They give off sound and heat energy.

• C. They produce a force to overcome Earth’s gravity.

• D. They make the shuttle weigh less during a launch.

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5. Keisha is holding some books, as shown below. Why doesn’t gravity pull the books to the floor?

• A. Gravity is pulling the books and Keisha toward each other.

• B. Gravity does not affect things while they are being carried.

• C. Keisha is pushing down on the books with a force equal to that of gravity.

• D. Keisha is holding the books up with a force equal to that of gravity pulling them down.

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6. Grant jumps in the air. Why does he come back down instead of staying in the air?

• A. He does not jump high enough.

• B. He does not jump with enough force.

• C. There is not enough air between his feet and the ground.

• D. There is no force that can overcome the force of gravity on him.

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7. Imagine that there was suddenly no gravity on Earth. What would most likely happen to a picture hanging on a nail on the wall?

• A. You would see the picture fall to the floor.

• B. You would see the picture shoot upward.

• C. You would see the picture float off the nail.

• D. You would not be able to get the picture off the wall.

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8. The dotted line in the figure shows the path of a thrown stick. Why does the path of the thrown stick curve?

• A. Gravity is pulling the stick down.

• B. The dog is pulling the stick down.

• C. The person used a curve-ball throw.

• D. The air pushes down on the stick.

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9. Two scientists are studying how gravity affects objects in different cities. One scientist finds that a baseball drops to the ground in 5 seconds. The other scientist finds the same thing in her city. Why is it important for these scientists to share their findings?

• A. to learn from each other

• B. to help them change their data to match

• C. to give them a reason to visit another city

• D. to stop worrying about gravity’s affects and go on to a new experiment

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10. Scientists collect lots of different types of data. Some data can be measured, and other data cannot. For example, a scientist might describe the color of a animal. This is not a type of data that can be measured. Which is an example of data that can be measured?

• A. color of a leaf

• B. length of a leaf

• C. scent of a plant

• D. softness of a flower