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OpenSciEd Physics + Earth & Space Unit 4: Meteors, Orbits & Gravity Teacher Edition
Author(s): NATIONAL CENTER FOR
Edition: 1
Copyright: 2024
Pages: 368
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OpenSciEd High School addresses all high school NGSS standards. This comprehensive science curriculum empowers students to question, design, investigate, and solve the world around them.
- Phenomenon Based - Centered around exploring phenomena or solving problems
- Driven by Student Questions - Storyline based on students’ questions and ideas
- Grounded in Evidence - Incremental building and revision of ideas based on evidence
- Collaborative - class and teacher figure out ideas together
- Equitable - Builds a classroom culture that values ideas and learning of all
The OpenSciEd model uses a storyline approach, introducing phenomena that anchors storylines developing disciplinary core ideas, concepts, and science/engineering practices. Students are encouraged to dive deep into key points and solve problems through five activities.
P.4 Meteors, Orbits & Gravity: How have collisions with objects from space changed Earth in the past, and how could they affect our future?
This unit is designed to introduce students to the motion of objects in our solar system through the perspectives of matter, force, and energy. The learning is anchored by the appearance of a large fireball in the sky over Siberia in 2013 (the Chelyabinsk meteor). This phenomenon provides the context in which to investigate how and why objects from space sometimes collide with Earth. To figure this out, students apply the concepts of Newton’s universal law of gravitation, orbital motion, energy transfer with gravitational fields, and the history of Earth.
Unit Overview
Unit Storyline
Teacher Background Knowledge
Home Communication
Lesson 1: Why is stuff falling from the sky?
Lesson 2: How far does Earth’s gravity extend into space?
Lesson 3: How does gravity cause only some objects to orbit?
Lesson 4: Why do objects sometimes collide in space?
Lesson 5: How do objects travel within their orbit paths?
Lesson 6: How can force interactions in space change the orbital path of a space object?
Lesson 7: What can we do if an orbiting object poses a significant risk for Earth?
Lesson 8: What is the probability of a future or past meteor event impacting Earth?
Lesson 9: What happened to all the meteors that reached Earth over its history?
Lesson 10: What determines the size of the crater made on impact?
Lesson 11: What happens to the thousands of objects the size of the Chelyabinsk meteor and smaller that enter Earth’s atmosphere every year?
Lesson 12: What happens when rocks hit planets or moons with minimal atmosphere?
Lesson 13: Why don't we see many craters on the surface of Earth?
Lesson 14: How could an impactor have killed off some types of life on Earth but not all?
Lesson 15: How can we use our science ideas to explain the formation of the Moon?
Unit P.4 Teacher Reference Materials
Unit P.4 Lesson-Specific Teacher Materials
NATIONAL CENTER FOR
OpenSciEd® was launched to improve the supply of and address the demand for high-quality, open-source, full course science instructional materials. The goals of OpenSciEd are to ensure any science teacher, anywhere, can access and download freely available, high quality, locally adaptable materials. Though the goal of providing full course materials is still a couple of years away, OpenSciEd is releasing six-week units of instruction as they are completed and externally evaluated as quality by Achieve’s Science Peer Review Panel. OpenSciEd classroom materials are an open education resource and therefore free to download, copy, use, and/or modify. You can download the instructional materials free of charge at Access Materials page on the OpenSciEd website. In an effort to lower barriers for all educators to use OpenSciEd, Kendall Hunt and OpenSciEd have partnered to sell high quality printed books, professional learning and lab kits.