 Grade 8 Unit 2: Earth's Forces - Magnetism and Gravity Activity 4: Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation (SI GLEs: 2, 12, 19, 28; PS GLEs: 5, 6)
Ask the students to think about the word gravity. Make a list of student understandings of gravity and discuss these with the class. Use Inspiration Template What Does Gravity Mean? to list facts that students know about gravity.
Have the students research the works of Johannes Kepler, Tycho Brahe, Galileo Galilei, and Nicholas Copernicus. Worldbook online http://www.worldbookonline.com
EBSCO (Use your school link to EBSCO)
For closure, have students form groups of three or four to construct a concept map of gravity. Students may use graphic organizer software such as Inspiration or Thinking Maps, or go to the following web address: http://www.teach-nology.com/web_tools/graphic_org/
Sir Isaac Newton: The Universal Law of Gravitation http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr161/lect/history/newtongrav.html
Additional websites for scientist research: The Galileo Project - Johannes Kepler http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/kepler.html
The Observations of Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe Homepage http://www.nada.kth.se/~fred/tycho/index.html
Introduction to Galileo Galilei http://galileo.rice.edu/gal/intro.html
Nicolas Copernicus Nicolaus Copernicushttp://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Mathematicians/Copernicus.html
CC: For closure, have students form groups of three or four to construct a concept map of gravity. Provide students with poster-size paper, string or yarn, and cards that have key terms and phrases as well as blank cards for student-generated terms and phrases. Allow a two-minute talk for each student group to share their concept map with the class. Students' concept maps could be displayed in the classroom.
Use Inspiration software to create the concept map of gravity.
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