Journey North Mystery Class Spring 2006

Discussion of Challenge Question #7

The testing is over, put down your pencils, take off your lab coats and let's review the results!

Mrs. Phillips' Warfield Elementary Class from Florida submitted their very detailed test results. They did a great job!

Take a look and compare them to your own findings. What differences do you see? What similarities?

Report From Mrs. Phillips' Class:

Students answered the question:

"Is there some special force that exists on the equinox that allows eggs to balance on the end?"

Hypothesis: The eggs will balance on the day of the equinox, March 20, 2006.

Procedures:

• One week before the equinox, we tried to balance eight eggs on the hard floor.

• Three days later, we tried again.

• We balanced the eggs on the day of the equinox and then three days later.

• We used the same eight eggs during the whole experiment.

• When one egg broke, it was not replaced.

Observations:

• We placed the egg on the floor and it rolled to the right.

• Some eggs balanced some of the time and not other times, but egg 4b balanced during every trial.

• Egg 1b, 3a, and 3b never balanced during our trials.

DATA:
yes= balanced
no = did not balance

Date	1a	1b	2a	2b	3a	3b	4a	4b
3/13	no	no	no	no	no	no	yes	yes
3/15	yes	no	yes	broke	no	no	no	yes
3/20 Spring Equinox	no	no	yes		no	no	yes	yes
3/22	no	no	no		no	no	yes	yes

Results

• Egg 4b balanced each day we tried.
• Eggs 1a, 2a, and 4a balanced some times.
• Eggs 1b, 2b, 3a, and 3b never balanced

Conclusion

Our hypothesis was wrong. The equinox has no special power to balance the eggs. Some eggs balanced on the day of the equinox and some didn’t, some even balanced before and after the equinox. Egg 4b balanced every time we experimented.

What do the Experts Say?

We asked Astronomy expert Rod Nerdahl:

Egguinox Expert Discussion