Video: Supplies Needed for Center of Gravity Butterfly Experiment

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Learn what kind of supplies you will need for the butterfly balancing center of gravity science experiment in this free home science video.

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Video Transcript

Hi I'm Scott Thompson, and today I'm going to demonstrate a center of gravity activity using balancing butterflies. What you will need for this activity first of all is a butterfly shape. These are templates that use patterns that the students use to trace onto their own card stock. So just a little bit heavier then paper. You can get these either online. If you just do a search for butterflies, you would get a larger shape that you can end up tracing to your own templates. Or I have seen them in kids' coloring books. Wherever you think that you can find them you probably will. They don't have to be exactly this shape, but about this size seems to work pretty well. The secret of the balancing butterfly is the counterweights that you attach on the other side of their wings. This can either be pennies, or washers, or even buttons. I have seen a variety of things that you can use, as long as they are exactly the same on each side of the wing; that is where the balance comes in. But that is part of the lesson; if students struggle with it, that is because they maybe don't have exactly the same weight object on both wings. So we got templates you will need. Weights. You would also need scissors to cut a toothpick to the right shape. The toothpick actually gives the butterfly's body a little bit of stiffness; that gets glued on to the other side. Glue stick—the glue stick is used to attach the weight to the wings. I like glue sticks instead of hot glue for the weights, because it allows you a little bit of time and moves the weights around to get it balanced just right, but that, it doesn't set up very quickly. But for the toothpick, hot glue comes in handy. Use a low temp glue that is safer, and probably safety glasses are a good idea.

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Supplies Needed for Center of Gravity Butterfly Experiment

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