Teacher Resources

The Lunar Lander Activity Sequence document can be downloaded from this link.
 

Related worksheets

The ToonTalk tools and word document worksheet for activities to do with the plotting of the motion of cars is available here.

The group matching representations task document and guidance is available here.
 

Learning snapshots and Pedagogical advice

The pedagogical advice report gives tips and tricks for teachers running the activities.

 

General background

The Lunar Lander activities involve students engaging with a number of physics/ mathematics concepts such as:

• Interpreting position-time and velocity-time graphs.

• Moving between different representations of motion events - narrative, graphical, and that specified by ToonTalk sensors (i.e. could be said to be an algebraic representation).

• Understanding the causes of motion, specifically Newton's Third Law (F=m.a).

There are numerous well-known and so-called "misconceptions" or "alternative conceptions" that children may hold relating to these areas. These include:

• "Graph as picture". Thinking that a graph shows the trajectory of an object's motion, rather than being an abstract representation that needs to be interpreted according to the 'grammar of graphs'.

• Not paying close attention to the axes of graphs, and hence not distinguishing between the same shape on say a position-time and velocity-time graph. Again, this can be said to be needing to learn the correct 'grammar of graphs'.

• Not having a clear understanding of acceleration, and especially confusing it with velocity/speed. Students will likely try to relate the term to its common language usage, for example thinking that a car with good acceleration is "fast". Students may also think of acceleration only in terms of "speeding up", as opposed to the scientific definition which is change in speed, whether positive or negative (sometimes called "deceleration" in common language use).

• Alternate conceptions of the causes of object motion (e.g. thinking that a constant speed requires a constant force).

While knowledge about the common mistakes students are likely to make and the "alternate conceptions" they might hold is useful, it is not simply the case that these can (or maybe even should) be replaced by the corresponding "correct" scientific conceptions. Rather, as teachers we can try to focus students attention on knowledge that is contiguous with their own current understandings - a move from everyday understandings to that of formal systems in invariably a slow and piecemeal process.