Several everyday items are required to carry out this project. Most importantly, your young scientists will need a clear area with flat ground near a wall, such as a corner of the school gymnasium, to set up a stepladder from which the basketball is dropped. Students should also attach a pair of yard sticks end-on-end to the wall, using tape, so it measures up to a height of 72 inches. Your young scientists must set up a video camera on a tripod directly opposite the yard sticks on the wall, at least 4 feet away, to easily measure the height the basketball bounces. Finally, youngsters need a full-sized basketball, a ball pump, an air pressure gauge and a notebook to record experiment results.
Youngsters should set the video camera to record before starting the experiment with a fully-inflated ball by climbing to a set height on the stepladder, such as five feet, outstretching their arms fully and dropping the ball. It is key that students drop the ball in the same fashion on each occasion to make the experiment repeatable. Your young scientists should drop the ball at the same air volume on at least three occasions, so the result can be averaged when compiling results. Instruct students to decrease the air volume in the ball using the pump and air gauge to achieve the desired air volume inside the ball before repeating the dropping test.
You must supervise and assist your children at all times during this experiment, which involves the potentially hazardous climbing of a stepladder. Ensure that the experiment stepladder is set up safely and securely and that youngsters are wearing appropriate footwear before they climb it. You should also ensure the area where students are dropping the ball is clear of any other people or debris that could damage the basketball. Finally, assist your young scientist with inflating the basketball to make sure he does not over-inflate the ball, which risks it bursting.
Encourage your students to display their experiment results in clear, concise and interesting ways. For example, when showing the results of this experiment, youngsters can show video footage of the bouncing basketball at different volumes of air. Secondly, your young scientists can draw up graphs of the experiment results, plotting a line graph with height of the ball's bounce in inches on the vertical axis and air pressure in pounds per square inch on the horizontal axis. Remind your students to accompany the visual elements of the basketball air volume experiment with compelling text explaining the project conducted.