Lesson 7: Foucault Pendulum at the North Pole

Maureen Dooley, B.S.Ed.

Copyright 2004. Permission is granted for classroom use and for non-commercial educational purposes.

Subject __________________________

Grade Level _______________________

Anticipatory Set (focus) - The students will answer a warm-up question from the board. What is mystery force model?

Purpose (objective) - The students will be able to explain what they imagine would happen to the pendulum if it were swinging in a plane at the north pole, using both the earth-fixed model and the earth-spinning models.

Input - The teacher will ask for answers to the warm-up question, to review what was taught in the previous lesson. The teacher will then explain to the students that they will be writing two essays today; one that explains what they imagine would happen to the pendulum if it were swinging in a plane at the north-pole, using the earth-fixed model and a second essay explaining the same scenario, using the earth-spinning model.

Modeling (show) - The teacher will review with the students the earth-fixed and earth-spinning models.

Independent Practice - The students will take out paper and will write the two essays.

Closure - (Tell or show me what you have learned) - The teacher will ask several students to read their essays to the rest of the class. The teacher will discuss their arguments and reasoning from their essays. The students will turn in their essays as "tickets" out of the class.