Free Fall Gizmo Answer Key

What the Free Fall Gizmo Actually Does

The Free Fall Gizmo from ExploreLearning is a virtual lab where you drop objects and measure how they accelerate toward the ground. It strips away air resistance by default so you can see pure gravitational motion. The interface lets you set the initial velocity, choose different planets, adjust mass, and watch the object fall while tracking position, velocity, and acceleration on graphs in real time. Most teachers assign the guided inquiry questions that come with the Gizmo. Those questions ask you to run specific trials, read values off the graphs, and draw conclusions. The answer key is just the set of responses to those questions. Students look for it because the guided sheet often has 10 to 20 blanks and grading takes up class time.

Free Fall Gizmo Answer Key

Here is how to actually use one without getting tripped up. The Guided Inquiry templates change from year to year, and different schools may be using older versions. I found that out the hard way when a student brought me a worksheet that had been circulating through a faculty Google Drive. The question numbers didn't match the current ExploreLearning version at all. I ended up mapping each old question to its new counterpart by looking at the specific parameters mentioned — like "drop from 100 meters on the Moon with zero initial velocity" — rather than trying to force a direct one-to-one match. Most legitimate answer keys you will find online are user-uploaded PDFs or Google Docs. They are not published by ExploreLearning themselves. That matters because if a key contains answers that don't align with your class version, every single number will be wrong. Verify against your own Gizmo session before turning anything in.

How to Navigate the Gizmo and Get the Right Numbers

Open the Free Fall Gizmo and start with the Description tab. The simulation gives you a table of motion data as the object falls. The key thing most people miss is that the Time, Velocity, and Acceleration columns are what the graphing questions are built around. If you are asked to find acceleration, you don't calculate it from distance and time using kinematics equations — you read it directly from the simulation data or from the acceleration vs. time graph. Run the simulation with the exact parameters listed in each question. The default gravity on Earth is 9.8 meters per second squared. On the Moon it is 1.62. On Jupiter it is 24.79. The Gizmo will show different terminal behavior if you toggle air resistance on, which some versions of the assignment require. For the typical Guided Inquiry questions, here are the kinds of answers you should be looking for:

• Object drop from 100 m on Earth, no air resistance: Final velocity should be approximately 44.3 m/s, with acceleration constant at 9.8 m/s² throughout the fall.
• Does mass affect fall rate? No. Feather and ball drop simulations in the Gizmo show identical acceleration regardless of mass when air resistance is off. This is the core concept the question is testing.
• Moon comparison: Objects fall slower. Acceleration is 1.62 m/s², so the same 100-meter drop takes about 11 seconds instead of roughly 4.5 seconds on Earth.
• Upward initial velocity: If you give the object a positive upward speed, it rises, stops momentarily at the peak, then falls back down. The acceleration remains constant at whatever gravity you selected. Students frequently get confused and think acceleration changes at the peak — it doesn't.

Common Pitfalls That Make Wrong Answers

I have seen the same mistakes repeat across hundreds of student submissions. The biggest one is mixing up the sign convention. Some versions of the Gizmo define downward as negative velocity, while the math questions assume downward is positive. If your acceleration reads -9.8 m/s² in the simulation but the answer key says 9.8 m/s², both are correct — they just use different conventions. Check which direction your teacher assigned as positive before writing anything down. Another frequent error is reading velocity from the position vs. time graph slope instead of the velocity vs. time graph. The slope of the position graph does give you instantaneous velocity, but visually estimating that slope by eye is wildly inaccurate. The Gizmo provides the velocity column and the velocity graph specifically so you don't have to do manual calculations. There is also a subtle issue with the distance fallen calculation. The Gizmo shows the total distance from the starting point, not the displacement if you launch the object upward first. If question 4 asks how far the object has fallen after you give it an upward throw, make sure you are reporting the total path length, not just the final height above ground.

Where to Find Reliable Keys

ExploreLearning itself does not publish answer keys. You won't find an official one on their site. What you will find are user-created resources on sites like Quizlet, Studymode, CourseHero, and various teacher blogs. The quality varies enormously. The most reliable keys are the ones posted by teachers who have updated them for the current year's Gizmo version. Look for a document that includes dates from the last 12 months. Anything older than that likely maps to a previous version of the simulation with different question phrasing or updated constants. If you want to verify a key quickly, open your own Gizmo, run the first two trials yourself, and compare the numbers. If even the first two don't match, the rest of the document is probably outdated. Don't waste time reading further.

What the Gizmo Can't Tell You

One limitation worth noting: the Free Fall Gizmo models idealized physics. It assumes constant gravitational acceleration and ignores atmospheric drag unless you explicitly turn that on. In the real world, a feather falls differently than a bowling ball because of air resistance, not because of mass differences in gravity itself. If your assignment mentions real-world conditions or asks you to discuss terminal velocity, the basic Gizmo setup without air resistance will not give you the right framework. Toggle the air resistance setting on if the question requires it, and pay attention to whether the mass parameter affects the result — it should only matter when drag is enabled. Another blind spot: the Gizmo rounds some of its displayed values. If you are doing calculations that require more precision than what the on-screen table shows, you will get slightly off answers compared to what an answer key calculated using the full formula. When precision matters, compute the values yourself using g = 9.8 m/s² or the planet-specific value rather than copying directly from the simulation display. Free fall questions on this Gizmo tend to test one thing: understanding that gravitational acceleration is constant and independent of mass. Everything else — reading graphs, matching values, handling upward launches — is secondary to that. If you can explain that concept clearly in your own words, the actual numbers become much less stressful to deal with.