This is an activity about orbital mechanics. Learners will investigate how lateral velocity affects the orbit of a spacecraft such as the ISS. Mathematical extensions are provided. This is science activity 1 of 2 found in the ISS L.A.B.S. Educator Resource Guide.

How do we communicate with each other? How do we communicate with people who are close by? How do we communicate with people who are far away? In this lesson, students will explore the role of communications and how satellites help people communicate with others far away and in remote areas with nothing around (i.e., no obvious telecommunications equipment). Students will learn about how engineers design satellites to benefit life on Earth. This lesson also introduces the theme of the rockets curricular unit.

In this lesson, students are introduced to both potential energy and kinetic energy as forms of mechanical energy. A hands-on activity demonstrates how potential energy can change into kinetic energy by swinging a pendulum, illustrating the concept of conservation of energy. Students calculate the potential energy of the pendulum and predict how fast it will travel knowing that the potential energy will convert into kinetic energy. They verify their predictions by measuring the speed of the pendulum.

Students learn about landslides, discovering that there are different types of landslides that occur at different speeds from very slow to very quick. All landslides are the result of gravity, friction and the materials involved. Both natural and human-made factors contribute to landslides. Students learn what makes landslides dangerous and what engineers are doing to prevent and avoid landslides.

Students learn about how biomedical engineers create assistive devices for persons with fine motor skill disabilities. They learn about types of forces, balanced and unbalanced forces, and the relationship between form and function, as well as the structure of the hand. They do this by designing, building and testing their own hand "gripper" prototypes that are able to grasp and lift a 200 ml cup of sand.

In this lesson, students learn about the physical properties of the Moon. They compare these to the properties of the Earth to determine how life would be different for astronauts living on the Moon. Using their understanding of these differences, they are asked to think about what types of products engineers would need to design for us to live comfortably on the Moon.

Students are introduced to the structure, function and purpose of locks and dams, which involves an introduction to Pascal's law, water pressure and gravity.

Can you avoid the boulder field and land safely, just before your fuel runs out, as Neil Armstrong did in 1969? Our version of this classic video game accurately simulates the real motion of the lunar lander with the correct mass, thrust, fuel consumption rate, and lunar gravity. The real lunar lander is very hard to control.

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A realistic mass and spring laboratory. Hang masses from springs and adjust the spring stiffness and damping. You can even slow time. Transport the lab to different planets. A chart shows the kinetic, potential, and thermal energy for each spring.

Using the LEGO MINDSTORMS(TM) NXT kit, students construct experiments to measure the time it takes a free falling body to travel a specified distance. Students use the touch sensor, rotational sensor, and the NXT brick to measure the time of flight for the falling object at different release heights. After the object is released from its holder and travels a specified distance, a touch sensor is triggered and time of object's descent from release to impact at touch sensor is recorded and displayed on the screen of the NXT. Students calculate the average velocity of the falling object from each point of release, and construct a graph of average velocity versus time. They also create a best fit line for the graph using spreadsheet software. Students use the slope of the best fit line to determine their experimental g value and compare this to the standard value of g.

PHYSICAL SCIENCE
Build your very own trebuchet and catapult yourself to victory! You'll learn more about levers, simple machines, and the principles behind force and gravity as you experiment with projectiles and counterweights to make the perfect launch.

ABOUT THE SCIENCE
The trebuchet (pronounced tray-boo-shay) was a large counter-weighted weapon used in the Middle Ages during warfare to break down the walls of castles. The first ones invented used between 15 and 40 men to pull down the lever arm in order to launch it. It soon developed into a simple machine called a traction trebuchet that used gravity instead of manpower. These machines were generally larger and more difficult to reload, but could catapult much bigger objects.
Here is how it worked! It had a lever that transferred gravitational energy into kinetic energy, taking the force of gravity and using it to fling an object. Soldiers relied on this weapon so much, that they even named them! One very large trebuchet used during the Crusades in Scotland was named “Warwolf”.
No matter the size, the main components of a trebuchet are the lever and the sling. The pivot point (or fulcrum) is located between the load and the effort and works like a see saw. On one end there is the object that is to be fired and on the other is the counterweight. Raising the counterweight above the ground causes a buildup of potential energy. When the counterweight is released and falls, the lever arm pivots on its fulcrum and the other end of the projectile receives the energy.
Can you believe they used these on ships as well as land? You can probably throw a ball on land with pretty good aim. Next time you are floating in a pool or lake, try throwing a ball to the shore and see what these ship-bound trebuchets were up against.

Students explore how different materials (sand, gravel, lava rock) with different water contents on different slopes result in landslides of different severity. They measure the severity by how far the landslide debris extends into model houses placed in the flood plain. This activity is a small-scale model of a debris chute currently being used by engineers and scientists to study landslide characteristics. Much of this activity setup is the same as for the Survive That Tsunami activity in Lesson 5 of the Natural Disasters unit.

Great, short, engaging videos to explain all things physics to learners of all ages. Everything from Covid-19 to gravity to parallel universes!

The application of engineering principles is explored in the creation of mobiles. As students create their own mobiles, they take into consideration the forces of gravity and convection air currents. They learn how an understanding of balancing forces is important in both art and engineering design.

This is an activity about gravity. Learners will design their own experiments to explore the fundamental force of gravity and then extend their thinking to how gravity acts to keep objects like moons and ring particles in orbit. They use the contexts of the solar system and the Saturn system to explore the nature of orbits. The lesson enables students to correct common misconceptions about gravity and orbits and to learn how orbital speed decreases as the distance from the object being orbited increases. This is lesson 3 of 6 in the Saturn Educators Guide.

Mechanical energy is the most easily understood form of energy for students. When there is mechanical energy involved, something moves. Mechanical energy is a very important concept to understand. Engineers need to know what happens when something heavy falls from a long distance changing its potential energy into kinetic energy. Automotive engineers need to know what happens when cars crash into each other, and why they can do so much damage, even at low speeds! Our knowledge of mechanical energy is used to help design things like bridges, engines, cars, tools, parachutes, and even buildings! In this lesson, students will learn how the conservation of energy applies to impact situations such as a car crash or a falling object.

Embark on an exhilarating journey across the cosmos as you unravel the intricate dance of planets, delving into the profound effects of position, mass, velocity, and distance on their celestial motions and orbits!

• Predict how the position, mass, velocity, and distance between planetary bodies affect their motion and orbits.

• Illustrate how the gravitational force controls the motions of the planets.

• Explore the different motions that a group of planetary bodies can have.

• Describe the behavior of the planet's velocity in different moments of its orbit.

Build your own system of heavenly bodies and watch the gravitational ballet. With this orbit simulator, you can set initial positions, velocities, and masses of 2, 3, or 4 bodies, and then see them orbit each other.

Do you want to be an astronaut? Would you like to someday walk on the moon? Well, you better learn a little about gravity so you can escape from Earth and head into space. In this video, Sabrina chats with us about what it takes to get to the moon!