Gravitational Potential Energy Investigation

Carry out an investigation to look for patterns in how the mass and drop height
affect the potential energy of the falling object.

Take your water bottle and fill it with an amount of water, and take the mass of the partially
filled bottle using the scale (you will need to convert it to kg since the scale measures in grams,
remember 1000 g = 1 kg), put your spike in the can crusher at your measured height, and
measure the original height of the can. Load the water bottle carefully into the can crusher tube,
and place a soda can underneath the tube. Take the spike out of the tube to have the can
crusher crush the can. Measure the new crushed height of the can. Organize your data into a
data table (using Google sheets works best). Minimum of 16 different data points are to be
included in your data table. Your 16 points should be organized with 4 different heights and 4
different masses in the bottle. For example:

Organize your cans in a “physical graph” varying by mass on one “axis” and drop height on
the other “axis”. Insert your data table and picture of crushed cans below.

mass 1-.6665 mass 2- .9554 mass 3- 1.0061

kg kg kg
height 1- 1.53
m 10 cm 8.8 cm 8 cm
height 2- 1.32
m 11.7 cm 10.3 cm 9.8 cm
height 3- 1.01
m 12 cm 11 cm 10.5 cm
Analyze and interpret your data to determine what affect the mass and drop
height have on potential energy.

Use the data table to make 2 scatter plot graphs, one where mass(kg) is the independent
variable and Crush Length(m) is the dependent variable and the other where drop height(m) is
the independent variable and Crush Length(m) is the dependent variable. Use the line of best fit
to produce an equation that models the data. Insert your graphs with equations below.
(Remember, in google sheets you can put your collected data into a table, generate the graph,
find the line of best fit, and get a mathematical model of the data. Then all you have to do is
insert the data table and graph below from the google sheet. If needed, you can do your work
for this section by hand on a piece of paper and insert a picture of that work here.)
y= -.026x+1.55

y= .17x+0.72
Develop a model to properly describe how mass and drop height affect
gravitational potential energy of objects mathematically.
Using your data as evidence, create a mathematical model (an equation) for how mass and
height affect gravitational potential energy. Insert your model below.

GPE=mgh

Construct an Explanation describing how increasing gravitational potential

energy causes gravity to do more work.
Using your data and your model as evidence, describe why having more gravitational potential
energy means gravity can do more work. Be sure to use the equations:
𝑊𝑜𝑟𝑘 = 𝐹𝑜𝑟𝑐𝑒 * 𝐷𝑖𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑛𝑐𝑒 and 𝐹𝑜𝑟𝑐𝑒 𝑜𝑓 𝐺𝑟𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑦 = 𝑚𝑎𝑠𝑠 * 𝑔𝑟𝑎𝑣𝑖𝑡𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛𝑎𝑙 𝑎𝑐𝑐𝑒𝑙𝑒𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛
as well as the mass of the object, and the drop height of the object in your explanation.

Having more gravitational energy gives gravity the ability to do more work. This is seen in our
graphs and our models. To start, in our equation, PEg=mgh, the “g,” which represents gravity,
between the mass and height shows that with a higher gravitational force or lower force, the
outcome of potential gravitational energy can be affected. In our graphs and data tables, it is
seen that the higher the height, which affects the gravitational potential energy, the more the can
is crushed and the lower the gravitational potential energy, the less the can is crushed. The
mass of the object also increased the gravitational pull as gravity had more work to do based on
the force. In our data you can see that the bigger the mass from the distance and force of
gravity, the greater the gravitational acceleration is.