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Which Way Is Down at the Lake Inlet?

Use a lake-inlet investigation and an Earth model to argue that gravity pulls objects toward Earth's center.

Grade 5ScienceInteractive · Printable

Aligned to5-PS2-1

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What’s included

Single worksheet
Auto-graded online
1 NGSS standard
Printable answer key
14 questions
Classroom-ready

Details

Format: Interactive · Printable
Grade: Grade 5
Subject: Science
Question types: Fill in the blank, Multiple choice, Matching, Circle the answer, Sorting, Short answer

About this worksheet

What students practice

Students use investigation results as evidence that Earth's gravity pulls unsupported objects down.
Students use an Earth model to explain that down points toward Earth's center at different locations.
Students support a claim about gravity with observations and model-based reasoning.

How to use

Read the field report together, then have students work independently. Discuss how the local observations and the Earth model contribute different evidence to the final argument.

Curriculum

NGSS standard covered

5-PS2-1

Argue that Earth's gravity pulls objects down toward the center of Earth.

Preview

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Which Way Is Down at the Lake Inlet?

Use a field investigation and an Earth model to build an argument about gravity.

Investigate at the Inlet

Read the class report. Use the investigation's setup and results to answer the questions.

Field Report: The Inlet Observation Deck

A fifth-grade class visited a wide observation deck where a river enters a lake. Their question was, “Does changing the direction a person faces change the direction a released ball moves?” Scientists call Earth's pull on objects gravity. The class wanted observations they could use when explaining the direction of that pull. The lake was beside the deck, not directly beneath their test spot.

Step 1: The teacher chose a level test spot well away from the railing. Students put a wide, shallow tray on the deck to catch a soft ball. No objects were released over the water. The air was calm. An adult marked a release point 40 centimeters directly above the tray's middle. Students watched from the side.

Step 2: One student faced the river and held the ball at the marked point on an open palm. The student lowered the hand out of the way without pushing the ball. The class repeated this six times. They recorded whether the ball's first movement was toward the deck, sideways, or away from the deck.

Step 3: The same student turned to face the lake for six trials, then faced along the deck for six more. The student used the same ball, release point, height, tray, and release method. Only the direction the student faced changed. In each set of six trials, every ball first moved toward the deck and landed in the tray.

Step 4: The student faced each direction once more but kept the palm under the ball. During each five-second observation, the ball stayed at the release point. The class recorded these three supported-ball observations separately from the release trials. They did not measure falling speed or test any other objects.

Back at school, the class examined a round Earth model. Earth is approximately ball-shaped. At any place on its surface, the ground beneath a person's feet is closer to Earth's center than a point just above that person's head. A flat drawing can show places all around Earth, even though the class tested only one location.

What did the class deliberately change between the three sets of release trials?