Science assignment: Parachutes?

Question

Aim: To investigate how the size of a parachute affects the rate of the fall of a mass.

Say if I used a plastic bag as a parachute and attached, say, a children's teddy bear to it and dropped it from 5m high, would it go slower if I changed the plastic bag to a bigger one?

The bigger the parachute, the slower the object will fall to the ground?

Yes/No

Explain?

Answer 1

bigger the parachute, the mass will take more time to touch the ground.

parachute obeys law of gravity :- anything that is thrown up will come down.

when someone(a mass) opens a parachute in the air. the hollow part of the parachute(in inner part) is filled with air. this force is acting upwards.

there is another force i.e. gravity which is acting downwards.

less the difference between the gravitational force and force upward, more will be the time taken to touch the ground.

and because a bigger parachute will be filled with more air,thus the force acting upward will be more and there will be less difference between the gravitation force and force acting upward and hence, the mass will take more time to touch the ground.

you know, if the force acting upward and gravitational force are equal, the parachute with mass will hang in air and will not touch the ground.

but, it is almost impossible, because gravitational force is always more, so the parachute with mass comes to ground.

Answer 2

Absolutely Yes.

The parachute is connected to a person, right? So if the parachute is bigger, the much air will resist the exertion of force from the force exerted after jumping.

Answer 3

yes ,bigger parachute slower because it traps more are as its falling and holds u up longer