Final answer:
Shoes likely travel faster than rubber ducks in water because they may have less surface area relative to their mass, causing them to experience less resistance. To test this, an experimental plan with controlled trials measuring the speed of both objects in the water should be created.
Step-by-step explanation:
The question poses a hypothesis about why shoes might travel faster than rubber ducks and other bath toys, suggesting a few possible reasons and asking for an experimental plan to test these ideas. When looking at falling objects, we must consider air resistance, which acts in the direction opposite the motion of the object and exerts more force on objects with larger surface areas. Therefore, if shoes are heavier than rubber ducks with a smaller surface area relative to their mass, they'll experience less air resistance and fall faster. However, this is not about falling; it's about an object moving through water. Here, we must consider not only air resistance but also the shape and buoyancy of the objects. Shoes could travel faster because they may sink and be subject to less resistance than floating rubber ducks, which have a high surface area in contact with water and air.
To test this hypothesis, an experimental plan could include a controlled environment where both shoes and rubber ducks are released in a body of water under identical conditions, and their speed is measured. Variations in design, weight, and the surface area of both ducks and shoes should be considered in different trials to account for these variables properly.