Common sense says that the farther a planet is from the sun, the longer the orbit. Kepler turned common sense into his third law by quantifying this relationship. Classes explore Kepler's Third Law through an interactive tutorial. They adjust the axis of an orbit and observe the effect on the time through graphical and visual representations.

Concepts

kepler's laws, orbiting, mass, planets

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Additional Tags

science

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Instructional Ideas

• Pair the activity with the similar activity exploring Kepler's Second Law

Classroom Considerations

• Requires a strong understanding of graphical relationships and orbit characteristics
• Activity needs laptops with flash player enabled

• This content requires Adobe Flash to view

Pros

• Allows learners to explore the relationship through individual analysis at their own pace
• Illustrations provide an opportunity to connect the quantitative analysis to a visual representation

Cons

• None