ESA Education presents 'Barycentric balls', a new classroom activity for secondary schools
A new set of resources for secondary school physics students aged 14-18 years old are now ready for teachers to download. ‘Barycentric balls’ is a simple but powerful demonstration designed to teach the concepts of the barycentre or centre of mass, the principle of moments and torque and rotational mechanics placing them in a space context. Students then consolidate the principles they have learned by completing mathematical problems touching on a variety of space themes.
The classroom activity and student worksheet is accompanied by two demonstration videos. The video ‘Barycentric balls’ shows clearly how to perform the classroom demonstration whilst ‘Barycentric balls in space’ takes the concept further, showing a related demonstration in microgravity aboard the International Space Station, and placing the physics principles in a wider context of gravity and free-fall.
