Divide the students into groups of four or five. Give each group a box of materials. Gather scraps of fabric, cardboard, foam, packing peanuts, bubble wrap, milk cartons, cotton balls, cotton swabs, toothpicks or anything you have laying around that could pad an egg.
Provide each group with a selection of adhesive materials like glue, tape or sticky tack. Students may want to use adhesive to attach padding to an egg.
Give each group six raw eggs. The groups will take turns padding an egg while on a timer and taking a turn dropping it from a designated height. This requires teamwork and cooperation from the students.
Set a timer for 2 minutes and have the teams pad the first egg. Stop them at the two minute mark.
Give each team a turn to stand on the first or second rung of the ladder and drop the egg from waist high. Record the results on the board. Encourage the students to remember what they did so they can recreate it or change it, if needed.
Clean up after each egg drop with paper towels and a broom. Encourage the teams to salvage what they can from each turn to reuse materials. Have the students wash their hands after the project is completed since they will be working with raw eggs.
Repeat the process five more times, going up one rung on the ladder each time. The egg should be dropped from the highest rung by the last turn. Record the results for each turn on the board.
Bring the class back together and discuss which team had the most success and what materials they used to pad the egg. Tell them the acceleration of the drop and the force of the impact is what caused the eggs to break. Explain the purpose of the project was to show that the impact needed to be spread across the entire surface of the egg to avoid breaking it.