Are you teaching about gravity and our solar system? Well, actually, gravity and inertia in the solar system go hand in hand.
Gravity (pulling planets) and inertia (keeping planets moving) work together to keep planets moving in orbit.
This can be a complex topic when it comes to teaching it to middle school students, but once it makes sense to them, it’s going to stick!
In this post, I want to share some ways with you to bring the WOW Factor to your science classroom when you are teaching about gravity and our solar system (and beyond!). I share some WONDER strategies. These are those strategies that will help students to become internally motivated to learn more. This is what hooks students in! Second, I share an interactive lesson that provides middle school level content to students in an engaging and effective way. Finally, I share some WIDEN Activities to help students apply what they’ve learned and also extend their knowledge!
Let’s go! Time to bring the WOW Factor when teaching about gravity and our solar system…and inertia too!
Gravity and Our Solar System WONDER Strategies
Personally, I think that this is an awesome topic. The “world beyond” is fascinating to everyone. Just think of all of the movies created about space! The concept of gravity (and inertia) may or may not be intriguing for your students, but these WONDER strategies I’m about to list will help them become more excited to learn and dive deeper into the content!
How Do You Wash Hair in Space?
To get students thinking about gravity in general and what that looks like in other places (mass and distance play a huge role), you can show them this awesome video with Karen Nyberg. She so graciously shared with us how to wash your hair in space.
It’s something that seems so simple yet is so intriguing. Just being further away from the Earth causes the simplest task to become a lot more complex.
After the video, you can start a discussion with your class or have students discuss in pairs or groups.
Here are some guiding questions:
- Why does the water behave differently in space?
- Why is there less gravity in space compared to Earth?
- What other activities may be affected by this?
Jump Outside
I just know this is one of your favorite things to do as a WONDER strategy…take your students outside! It’s such a great thing to do, but it doesn’t happen as often as it should.
I could go on my soapbox talking about the importance of taking your students outside because this generation is just not getting the outdoor time they need, but I’ll save that for another day!
So, how can you use this as a WONDER strategy to introduce gravity and our solar system? You can have students compare how gravity impacts jumping on Earth and think about how jumps would be different on the moon or other planets.
- Gather some cones, markers, or just anything that you can mark how far a student jumps. They can work in pairs or groups.
- Go outside!!
- Have students to find a starting point and jump as far as the can. They should mark this. The other students in the group can do the same thing.
- Now tell students that on the moon, they could jump about six times higher! How far would they be able to jump? Tell them to “pretend” they are on the moon. This will be fun and entertaining for sure!
- What about other planets? Jupiter’s gravity is stronger, so students would actually have to divide their jump height. See if they can simulate this!
Once you come back inside, ask students which planet would be the most fun to jump on and why? Also ask them why gravity is so different on each planet. If they haven’t learned already, mass plays a huge role in the force of gravity, in addition to distance.
Inertia and Gravity Demo
Maybe students need a quick refresher on what inertia and gravity are before diving into the content involving their impact on the solar system and beyond!
Gravity
Gravity is a force that pulls objects towards each other. A super simple demo that you can do to show this is to:
- Get a bouncy ball.
- Drop the ball, and let the class observe it bouncing.
- Ask students why the ball doesn’t keep bouncing forever.
Then you can explain that gravity is pulling the ball down when you drop it, but then the force of the ground pushes it back up. Gravity eventually wins, pulling it down until the ball stops!
Inertia
Inertia is an object’s tendency to keep doing what it’s doing.
One of the classic demos to show your students is this:
- You need a penny, an index card, and a small glass/beaker.
- You’ll place the glass/beaker on a table, lay the index card flat on top of the cup. It needs to cover the cup.
- Then, you’ll place the penny directly on top of the card, in the center.
- Ask students what they think will happen if you flick the card away.
- Then flick the card horizontally.
Here’s a good video of this demonstration.
Ask students why they think the penny fell! The answer is that the penny stayed at rest because of inertia. The force was applied to the index card but not directly to the penny. The flick is quick enough leaving the penny in place and being pulled by gravity into the cup!
Tell students they are going to learn more about how gravity and inertia both impact how planets and other objects orbit the Sun in our solar system.
Gravity in our Solar System Interactive Lesson
I am little biased, but I think one of the best lessons you can teach with, whether you are direct instruction, virtual, do a flipped classroom, or something in-between, is an interactive lesson! They use the 7 Steps to Help Students Retain Information to help students learn and REMEMBER the content.
They help students to NOT be overwhelmed. Sometimes, we can give students too much information at a time. It’s easy to do because we know the information, but we have to be careful. If we tell students too much information at a time, they end up not learning anything at all. Their mental load is overworked.
These interactive lessons help to reduce cognitive load!
In the Gravity and the Solar System Interactive Lesson, students learn all about Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation, Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity, mass and distance impact on gravity, gravity and inertia in the solar system, and more! Don’t let all of those things overwhelm you. This lesson is perfectly geared for middle school students!
Inside, there are embedded activities to help students process the information. These include a KWL, drag-and-drop activities, a model video, and more!
Gravity and our Solar System WIDEN Activities
At this point, your students have learned a lot about the topic, and that’s awesome! Now, it’s time to let them apply what they have learned as well as WIDEN their knowledge to learn beyond what your state standards may require! It never hurts to learn more!
Model Gravity in the Solar System
There’s a video inside of the interactive lesson that is similar to this, but if you want to put this model in action, you can make it happen!
You’ll need:
- A stretchy blanket/fabric
- Marble set – large and small
- At least one pool ball
- Duct tape
- 8-10 chairs!
It’s easier for me to show you than to tell you about it. Here’s a great guide from Science Buddies!
Gravity and Orbits PhET Simulation
If you don’t have the means to do the model above, this is a great alternative. I like the “model” one. Once you click on it, you will see our Sun and Earth. Once you click play, you will see the normal orbit. You can speed it up or slow it down.
You can view a grid, the path of the planet, the velocity, and the gravity force. This is a great way to visually see how gravity and inertia work together. Students can explore these as well as what happens when you change the mass of the star and the planet!
Some guiding questions may include:
- What happens when you increase or decrease the mass of the Sun? Planet?
- Are you able to get a planet to leave its orbit? How?
- How does gravity depend on the mass of an object?
- Why doesn’t the planet fall into the Sun if gravity is pulling it toward it?
- How does gravity and inertia explain elliptical orbits?
Move on to Space Exploration
Last, but not least, if you are on this lesson, you have probably already taught your students about the Sun, Earth, and Moon system, about the planets, about the solar system and more! If not, I have WOW ideas for those too! You may be ready to move on to Space Exploration!
Check out these WOW ideas for space exploration to WIDEN students knowledge even more!
Which of these will you add to your gravity and our solar system lesson plan?
Bring the WOW Factor to Your Science Classroom. Click below to learn more!
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