Things you'll need to decide on as you plan: Gravity and Space
Teaching Guidance
for 11-14
Bringing together two sets of constraints
Focusing on the learners:
Distinguishing–eliciting–connecting. How to:
- emphasise that the pull of gravity depends on the environment
- keep separate the effects of atmosphere and the pull of gravity
- establish gravity as a universal force, occurring everywhere
- establish gravity as a universal force, acting on stationary and moving objects
- use the term
force of gravity
consistently - connect interactions on this Earth with those occurring elsewhere in the universe
Teacher Tip: These are all related to findings about children's ideas from research. The teaching activities will provide some suggestions. So will colleagues, near and far.
Focusing on the physics:
Representing–noticing–recording. How to:
- keep force and energy separate
- explicitly model the action of gravity as a force exerted by the environment
- introduce a variety of contexts to explore how the pull of gravity varies
- draw the force of gravity acting on objects
- describe the variation in the force of gravity with separation
- account for the variation in the magnitude of the force of gravity
- use the idea of a field
- separate the force of gravity acting on an object from the mass of the object
- account for objects with different masses falling at the same rate
- communicate an accurate understanding of mass
- provide a coherent account of the experience of weightlessness
Teacher Tip: Connecting what is experienced with what is written and drawn is essential to making sense of the connections between the theoretical world of physics and the lived-in world of the children. Don't forget to exemplify this action.