In the woods, a small groups of us came up with a sycamore seed experiment.
Our questions was, do bigger sycamore seeds taken longer to fall then smaller sycamore seeds?
What we did:
- Picked one large and one small sycamore seed.
- Stood on a flat area in the woods so the one sycamore seed would not land on higher ground than the other.
- Held a stick at head height so that we knew where to drop the two sycamore seed from.
- Held the sycamore seed by the seed end and faced them in the same direction so that we let go, the seeds had a more equal chance to fall to the ground first.
- Let go off the sycamore seed at the same time.
- Watched the sycamore seeds spin and hit the ground and repeated the process 3 times.
Results:
Every time the small sycamore seed hit the ground first!
Why though?
Since doing this experiment, I thought about the results and read around the reasons for why we got those results. My conclusion is...
The larger sycamore seed has a greater mass compared with the smaller sycamore seed, which means larger one has a bigger force of gravity. However, because it has a larger surface area as well, there is more air resistance acting against it, so it takes longer for the larger sycamore seed to accelerate to its terminal speed. Meaning that it will take longer for the larger sycamore seed to fall to the ground.
What does it mean for the sycamore trees?
If the larger sycamore seeds take longer to fall to the ground, then they can travel further away from the tree it fell from. Compare this to the smaller sycamore seed which would probably fall closer to the tree. This means that the sycamore seeds probably spread quiet efficiently and if there is one sycamore tree, there are probably more in close vicinity.
References:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/add_gateway_pre_2011/forces/fallingrev1.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/gcsebitesize/science/add_ocr_gateway/forces/fallingrev3.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks3/science/energy_electricity_forces/forces/revision/3/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_mCC-68LyZM
Yes - the "seed rain" from the sycamore is spread out so that seeds fall near the tree and further away. If a tree produces 1000s of seeds, at least they are spread into a range of places so they have a chance to grow across a large area of the wood and in a range of environmental conditions - and so that individual seeds are not competing with each other so much.
ReplyDeleteYes - the "seed rain" from the sycamore is spread out so that seeds fall near the tree and further away. If a tree produces 1000s of seeds, at least they are spread into a range of places so they have a chance to grow across a large area of the wood and in a range of environmental conditions - and so that individual seeds are not competing with each other so much.
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