Circular Motion and Kepler's Laws Learning Activities

This zip file contains many different activities (53 pages of student handouts and 1 PowerPoint with a total of 25 slides) which can be used to compose a unit for physics students involving topics involving circular motion and Kepler's Laws. Topics in this unit include centripetal force, centripetal acceleration, Kepler's three laws, orbital and escape velocity, geosynchronous orbits and more.

A lab activity is contained within this package. The Kepler's Law activity is suitable for use with high school physics students or upper level earth science. No specialized materials are required for this activity beyond some cardboard, string and a calculator.

This set of activities be easily used in physics or advanced earth science/physical science courses. The components this unit addresses in the NGSS Standards and Common Core Standards are indicated at the end of this description.

The components of this lesson package can easily be displayed to students using and LCD projector and may be readily modified into formats facilitating smartboard technology.

All documents except for the PowerPoint are included in both word as well as pdf format to allow editing for specific teacher needs.   Many documents can be easily modified for google classroom use.

The specific contents of the learning package includes the following items (the page count for these items are actual student handouts as answer key page counts are not included):

• Circular Motion, Kepler's Laws and Gravity Scaffolded notes (17 pages)
• 35 slide PowerPoint to accompany Scaffolded Completion notes
• Circular Motion Homework with Key (focuses on centripetal force and acceleration) with answer key (11 pages/32 questions)
• Kepler's Laws Homework with answer key (28 questions) (6 pp.)
• Kepler's Laws Lab with learning goals, NGSS Standard, Common Core connections and key (9 pages)
• Circular Motion quiz with answer sheet and key (16 questions) (5 pp.)
• Kepler's Laws quiz with answer sheet and key (14 questions) (4 pp.)
• Gravitational Forces Worksheet (35 questions) (7 pp.)
• Gravitational Forces Quiz (20 questions) (3 pp.)
• Learning Standards and Objectives (including NGSS and Common Core (3 pp.)

NGSS Standard

Students who demonstrate understanding can:

HS-ESS1-4. Use mathematical or computational representations to predict the motion of orbiting objects in the solar system.

Common Core State Standards Connections

Mathematics

MP.2 Reason abstractly and quantitatively.

MP.4 Model with mathematics.

HSN-Q.A.1 Use units as a way to understand problems and to guide the solution of multi-step problems; choose and interpret units consistently in formulas; choose and interpret the scale and the origin in graphs and data displays.

HSN-Q.A.2 Define appropriate quantities for the purpose of descriptive modeling.

HSN-Q.A.3 Choose a level of accuracy appropriate to limitations on measurement when reporting quantities.

HSA-SSE.A.1 Interpret expressions that represent a quantity in terms of its context.

HSA-CED.A.2 Create equations in two or more variables to represent relationships between quantities; graph equations on coordinate axes with labels and scales.

HSA-CED.A.4 Rearrange formulas to highlight a quantity.

Terms of Use

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