Documente Academic
Documente Profesional
Documente Cultură
Wade Shasky
Investigating Gravity
Wade Shasky
Investigating Gravity
Wade Shasky
railing of the stairs, so that the height is constant, and time how long it takes for the apple to hit
the ground. This time will be used as a baseline for other objects.
As the teacher, move the independent variables the students came up with (blue sticky notes) into
the controlled variable section of Step 3(b). Pick a group and have them choose an independent
variable (blue sticky) from 3(b) and have them place it in the corresponding area of Step 3(a).
This means that everything else has to be the same from when the apple was dropped. Have each
of the five groups have a different independent variable and fill in Step 4 of the inquiry process.
Next have the students fill in their hypothesis, Step 5, of the inquiry process as to what they think
will happen when they change their independent variable.
Before the end of class ask the students how they will change the variable. This makes sure the
students have a plan for tomorrow, and you as the teacher are able to gather the required
materials. As an example, the group changing the mass, may want a melon to increase the mass,
and a plum, to decrease the mass, while the general shape and everything else stays constant.
DAY 2
Conduct the experiments that the students came up with! Some groups may have overlap with an
object they drop, which is fine, because you will be dropping the objects as a class, where
everyone can observe the changes, but the group who is changing a variable based on a specific
object needs to make sure they record their observations.
DAY 3
Ask the groups of students to record all their data and come up and explain what they observed
to the rest of the class.
Once this is done, show the entire video that you showed on day 1, which does in fact show the
feather falling slower than the bowling ball. Explain that this is due to many reasons, but the
main one being that the surface area of the feather allowed for more air resistance, which kept
the feather from falling at the same speed. In a vacuum, this is ignored as the only thing affecting
the object is in fact gravity.
This is what brings us to the gravitational acceleration constant. When we talk about and discuss
gravity, we are assuming that all objects fall at the same acceleration, meaning they fall in a
vacuum, which is why we use = 9.8/ 2 as a constant. Point out that most objects fell
around this because for the distance, air resistance was almost zero since the object had enough
mass.
Explain that this is the basis of our discussion about gravity and we will start to expand on this
concept more as we get into learning about this. We will start will Newtons laws and move on
from there. The idea behind this inquiry activity was to see gravity first hand and make
observations and predictions and to get to our ultimate goal of g. This is a better way of going
about explaining the concept as youre more likely to remember doing this and it made it more
fun than me just saying here is g accept it, and move on.
Investigating Gravity
Wade Shasky
INSPIRATION
The idea for this inquiry activity came to me based on an experiment I had to do in grade 12
university physics. The experiment was to keep an egg from breaking when dropped from three
stories. In this experiment I, along with some group members, were to design and construct a
vessel that would keep the egg from breaking. We were to use various materials and try to keep
the egg from breaking. We would use all our knowledge about gravity, and the forces acting on
the object to slow down the free fall and keep the egg from breaking. How my inquiry is adapted,
and for a grade lower, is to introduce the idea of gravity = 9.8/ 2 . In order to introduce
this fundamental and important aspect to grade 11s, I thought an inquiry activity would be better
than just telling them the formula and to accept it. Through this inquiry activity, the class is
going to figure out the acceleration in which an object falls. While doing this, the students will
see different affects that can cause an object to not fall at this rate, mainly air resistance. Given
different objects with varying masses, shapes, surface areas, etc., the students can witness what
affects, if anything, the rate at which something falls and can see if, for example, a golf ball falls
at the same rate as a watermelon, clearly two very different objects.
REFERENCES
https://www.newscientist.com/blogs/culturelab/2010/01/newtons-apple-the-real-story.html
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/falls-faster---bowling-ball-4574413
Investigating Gravity
Wade Shasky
Investigating Gravity
Wade Shasky
Investigating Gravity
Wade Shasky
Investigating Gravity
Wade Shasky