Teaching Physics

I'm starting a pilot program to use Kepler's Orrery as part of high school and middle school physics curriculae. I'm currently in discussions with Physics teachers who are planning to use the tool as an interactive aid in lectures about gravity. The system will demonstrate the effects of gravity on the motion of known bodies in our solar system as well as give the student virtual worlds in which to see the effects of changing gravitational constants and differing initial conditions.

Proposed Curriculum

• Short lecture on the properties of gravity:
  • mutual attraction depending on mass,
  • inverse square law,
  • elliptical orbits & Kepler's laws
  • slingshotting & chaotic orbits
• Lab 1: Demonstrate Kepler's Orrery, let students play with various worlds.
• Lab 2: start with simple worlds, try to make something happen
  • Simple world with one fixed rock, one body.
    • Task 1: put body in stable orbit by changing mass, velocity.
      Try to get 5 orbits.
    • Task 2: add another body. Try to get stable orbits. Try to get 3 orbits before chaos ensues or one of the worlds is eaten by the "sun."
  • Two Body world: one large body at center with no velocity, one small body moving nearby.
    • Task 3: put smaller body in stable orbit by changing mass, velocity.
      Try to get 2 orbits.
  • Four Square world: start with four equal-sized bodies that mutually orbit each other in a system that's stable for a little while
    • Task 4: play with the gravity, repulsion, and friction sliders and observe their effects: Does the system stay stable longer or shorter? How does the instability happen?
    • Task 5: what happens if you add another rock? Another body? What if you move one of them?

Schools

• Martin Luther King, Jr. Academic Middle School
  The first week of April, Science teacher Mae Linh Blake will hold two classes of two sessions each using Kepler's Orrery to demonstrate the physics of gravity. The lesson plans are currently being developed.