Gravity Guesswork

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.

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