Gravity Guesswork
By Priscilla Shumway
Standard: Knows the kinds of forces that exist between objects and
within atoms.
Understands general concepts related to gravitational force
Grade Level: 6-8
Time: 15-20 minutes
Materials: Variety of items
such as different size balls, a sheet of paper, a pencil, feather, scarf, large
sheet of newspaper, book and a sheet of cardboard the same size as the book.
There must be enough for 2 different items per team.
Group Size: Teams of 3-4
Purpose: To hypothesize about the effects of gravity on certain
objects as an introduction to a lesson on gravity.
Activity:
- Divide the group into teams of 3-4. Explain to the students
that they will be dropping two objects from the same height at the same time.
- Ask them to hypothesize, as a team, which objects will fall
to the floor faster.
- The team will create a 3-column chart that states their
hypothesis, the actual result, and the reason for the result. Record their
guesses in the first column.
|
Hypothesis
|
Actual Result
|
Reason
|
|
Ball
|
|
|
|
Scarf
|
|
|
- Now have the student teams stand on chairs and drop the
objects in pairs to see which ones fall to the floor first.
- Select a student recorder for each team.
- Once they have recorded the actual results, ask the teams to
discuss why some objects fell faster than others and record their reasons.
- Look for conclusions such as air resistance, friction,
weight.
Adaptations for Above
Level Learners:
Have these students review all of the teams' charts and
create a graph of the original guesses, and the actual results.
They can then figure out the percentage of correct and
incorrect guesses.
Submitted by Priscilla
Shumway, a former teacher who is currently a training consultant with The Bob
Pike Group.
