| Learning Objectives: What will students know and be able to do as a result of this lesson? | 1. Students will discover and explain the relation between distance and period involves exponents.
2. Students will learn how to use data to create a law and that the law does not constitute a theory since the data fitting does not include an explanation (Newton's theory).
3. Students will combine their knowledge from algebra and geometry with fundamental ideas in astronomy.
4. Students will explain how our knowledge has evolved through history. |
| Guiding Questions: What are the guiding questions for this lesson? | 1. How do the period, speed and average temperature of a planet vary with distance from the sun?
2. What aspects of these relationships extend to the earth-moon system? |
| Prior Knowledge: What prior knowledge should students have for this lesson? | 1. Students should understand the heliocentric model of the solar system and that the planetary paths are close to circular.
2. Students should understand the meaning of integer exponents.
3. Students should understand the basics of scientific notation.
4. Students should understand the meaning of semi-major axis length of an ellipse. Since this is only a definition, it can be explained by the teacher.
5. Students should be able to estimate the square root of a given integer. |
| Introduction: How will the teacher introduce the lesson to the students? | Lesson Plan: Kepler's Laws Lesson Plan.doc
Student Worksheet: Kepler-student-worksheet.docLink to a video describing Kepler's life, the discovery of his first law: http://www.learner.org/resources/series42.html?pop=yes&pid=57 The teacher could introduce the lesson via a brief history of the evolution of our ideas regarding planetary motion, from Ptolemy to Copernicus to Galileo to Kepler (and perhaps Newton).
Then indicate that it is important to know how far planets are from earth and how fast they move in order to design explorations to the planets.
Finally the teacher should indicate that scientific hypotheses and laws can be tested with data. |
| Investigate: What question(s) will students be investigating? What process will students follow to collect information that can be used to answer the question(s)? | Students will be investigating the relationship between distance of planets from the sun and the planets' period and speed. Students will gather data from books or web source for the distance (D) of the planet from the sun and the period (P). The strategies that the students develop are then applied to the earth-moon system and to the period of a pendulum as a function of its length. Spreadsheet for students: Kepler-Student-Spreadsheet.xls Table for Students: Kepler-student-table.doc Spreadsheet for teacher (Teacher's Key): Kepler-teacher-spreadsheet.xls Table for Teacher (Teacher's Key): Kepler-teacher-table.doc |
| Analyze: How will students organize and interpret the data collected during the investigation? | Students will complete a table using a given template. The table focuses on the six planets closest to the sun and contains their distances (D) from the sun, period (P) around the sun, and average temperature (T).
Students will also investigate how the period of a pendulum depends on its length. Students will measure the period with a stop watch, hopefully by timing several full periods to achieve accuracy. |
| Closure: What will the teacher do to bring the lesson to a close? How will the students make sense of the investigation? | Since students will be writing a technical report on the Kepler activity, the lesson will close with (1) a class discussion regarding the historical and scientific aspects of Kepler's third law and (2) how the strategies used to discover this law can be used to study other laws, e.g. the law of the pendulum. |