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astorrs
astorrs
Gravity lab
Oct 1 2008, 3:54 PM EDT | Post edited: Oct 1 2008, 3:54 PM EDT
Julia Punch (of RPEMS) and I just did an interesting lab trying to teach her sixth graders about gravity and the Earth-Moon system. I'll try to attach the handout we made but I'm having trouble linking things to this Wiki.

Basically they make a mobile with the Earth and Moon to size and mass scale, and string it up from the ceiling. If the stick was massless, this would rotate around the center of gravity (inside the Earth) but we used 1/16" oak dowels from Home Depot which vastly outweigh the models, to the things rotate around their middle. You can demonstrate the proper mass ratio using a roll of pennies ($0.50) for the Earth, and a single penny for the Moon-- I let this rotate over my head as we summarized the lesson at the end-- really catches their attention! Pass it from hand to hand as the stick rotates by, of course. You could use this to demonstrate the reflex motion of a star with a planet, or in other ways as well. 1  out of 1 found this valuable. Do you?    
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