Title: Discovery Lesson
Course: Web Tools for Courses

Astronomy/Space

Animating Motion
Curriculum Focus:
Space Science, engineering, math, physics
Duration: 2 hours

Objective:apply your knowledge of object motion by animating sequences of pictures that model a set of physical conditions, such as the orbital motion of planets and satellites, the effects of gravity on a falling body, and motions of objects in inertial (moving) frames of reference.
Materials: scissors, photo-copier for offline activities (to make digital versions students will need access to Windows MovieMaker or some type of video creation software).
In this activity students will:
* Animate the orbital motions of the Earth, the space shuttle, and the Moon based on calculations of the velocity of each object (Challenge #1).
* Animate the motion of a falling object based on calculations of acceleration due to the force of Earth’s gravity (Challenge #2).
* Animate the motion of a car, truck, and plane based on relative motions in a particular reference frame (Challenge #3)

- Background Information

Try each of the challenges listed here to practice graphing and animating the motions of objects:

Challenge #1 Assignment
Challenge #2 Assignment
Challenge #3 Assignment

Credits