Welcome to the course Muireann,
Parachutes and falling object make up part of the whole school Curious Minds CPD, and are an active way to help children use their science comprehension in a design and make task. In this example, they were designing the investigation to find the best way to determine if a parachute was good or not. They could also use their understanding to predict which material would make the best parachute by considering strength of material, flexibility of material, weight of material. For fair testing they would need to have the same design of parachute.
The class discussion after testing is a perfect example of “Sharing: Interpreting the data / results.”
You’ll find a completed Framework for Inquiry on this topic at
https://www.engineersireland.ie/LinkClick.aspx?fileticket=0g0LZLmOFMQ%3D&portalid=0&resourceView=1