Final answer:
Experiments with tennis balls, beads, and various objects dropped from the same height illustrate principles of motion, gravity, energy transfer, momentum, and natural selection.
Step-by-step explanation:
When you hold one tennis ball and let the other hang down, then throw them in a ballistic trajectory, you are conducting an experiment to observe the principles of motion and gravity. Initially, both tennis balls will follow a curved path, with the force of gravity acting upon them equally. The string's tension will slightly alter the trajectory, but largely, both balls will behave similarly.
Marking the center of the string or attaching a brightly colored sticker does not affect the physical principles at play, but it provides a visual aid to more easily observe the motion. You may notice that the path of the tennis balls around the marked center appears to show equal arcs, providing a better visualization of the center of mass of the system during its flight.
For the Take-Home Experiment, dropping a marble, a ball, and a spoon from the same height under ideal conditions without air resistance should result in them hitting the ground simultaneously due to gravity's uniform acceleration. However, dropping a piece of paper along with them will show a variance because air resistance significantly affects the paper's descent.
The Making Connections: Take-Home Investigation involving a tennis ball and a basketball explores the transfer of energy during collisions and the effect of different masses in motion when released together. The tennis ball will bounce higher when dropped with the basketball below it due to the transfer of kinetic energy from the larger ball to the smaller one when they hit the ground. If the tennis ball is held above, the effect will be less dramatic. Should the basketball be above, it may not show a significant effect, as the heavy basketball will not receive a notable bounce from the lighter tennis ball.
In the ruler and paper cup experiment, the hypothesized relationship is that the cup's displacement will increase with the mass of the ball. As the mass increases, so does the momentum imparted to the cup upon collision, resulting in greater displacement. Altering the slope of the incline affects the velocity of the ball, which also affects the displacement of the paper cup after impact. Plotting mass vs. displacement or velocity vs. displacement on a graph would visually represent these relationships.
Finally, the experiment with colored beads is a way to model population genetics and observe changes similar to that which occurs due to natural selection. It tests the hypothesis that certain traits (represented by bead colors) may survive through random events, like natural disasters, affecting the genetic diversity within a population.