Activity
Gravity Unit for Students with Multiple Disabilities
This unit on gravity is designed for high school-aged students with a variety of ability levels.
By Helen Benton, Teacher of Students with Visual Impairments, Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired (TSBVI)
Background
In my high school class at TSBVI, I served two students with CVI (one print user, and one who uses pictures and videos for instructional purposes), one DeafBlind student who uses print and intervener services, and one student with no vision who uses tactile symbols and auditory information. We were also a hybrid classroom due to COVID-19, so some of the students had access to school over Zoom, and some were in my classroom.
To learn more about gravity, we had a week of science lessons which culminated in an “egg drop” experiment.
Instructional Considerations
In a previous article, I outlined instructional considerations for teaching inclusive science lessons to students with visual and multiple impairments. Here is how we incorporated some of the considerations:
- Relevance: Class discussions about falling, dropping things, trampolines, and airplane travel. Students share personal experiences and ideas to activate prior knowledge and connect themselves to the topic of gravity. Integrate discussion into everyday experiences before introducing the lesson (e.g. while at PE on the trampoline, when discussing an upcoming trip, whenever things fall off the desks, which in our class was often!).
- Materials: Provide materials for the activity which students will recognize from another context (bubble wrap, cardboard box, marshmallows, popcorn, felt blanket). Take time to identify the materials and talk about their original context, when and where we usually encounter them. Identify their salient features, and discuss using them in a novel way.
- Media: Incorporate a variety of media materials to engage students; use the gravity song as a movement break, share gravity-related videos with students who use visual content, and include videos with a range of language levels, including some with little/no language and very clear visual representations.
- Language: Pre-teach relevant signs for DeafBlind learners. Offer passages digitally for backlit access (I liked using Google Slides), and other modifications specific to visual considerations. Take existing content and edit for concision, not necessarily simplicity (try to preserve authentic meaning while reducing linguistic complexity). Target vocabulary words to define, and be mindful of how many to introduce in a single lesson.
- Literacy: Include content for students to use print/braille literacy and develop pre-literacy skills (e.g. working left to right with materials in the activity, using AT to activate auditory access to information).
- Repeatability: Review each day the content covered the day before and check for understanding. Consider spending longer on a single topic for the introduction of a variety of examples and explorations (this is something I wish I’d done more of! I think having more than one experiment which covered force and motion would have been better).
- Engagement: My students in this group were so creative, curious, and super social! We tried to make each homework assignment a whole production each Friday where students took turns sharing what they had made. This was a great opportunity for them to work on social skills and communication as well.
Gravity Unit
Introduction to Gravity
Introduction to the concept of gravity. As discussed above, be sure to discuss relevant examples from the student’s own experiences.
What is gravity?
- Gravity is the force that pulls everything down towards the earth.
- It is the reason that when we jump we come back down.
- It is the reason that when we drop something it falls towards the ground.
Explore https://www.flocabulary.com/unit/gravity/.
Watch the video Let’s Fly! Crash Course.
Gravity and the Human Body
Watch the video with Jay Buckey on TED Ed.
Description: Our bodies function necessarily under the presence of gravity; how blood pumps, a sense of balance and bone growth are all due to life in a world where gravity is an inescapable reality. Armed with experiments from neuroscientists David Hubel and Torsten Wiesel, astronaut Jay Buckey presents a thought experiment: How would our bodies work without the force of gravity?
How do geckos defy gravity? – Eleanor Nelsen
Watch the video on TED Ed.
Description: Geckos aren’t covered in adhesives or hooks or suction cups, and yet they can effortlessly scale vertical walls and hang from ceilings. What’s going on? Eleanor Nelsen explains how geckos’ phenomenal feet allow them to defy gravity.
Writing Assignment
- Topic Sentence
- Detail 1: Gravity Facts
- Detail 2: Gravity and Humans
- Detail 3: Gravity and Animals
- Personal Opinion: What did you think?
Homework Assignment
- Build an “egg spaceship” that will help keep an egg from breaking when you drop it on the ground.
- Be ready to share your creations in class and try dropping the eggs.
- You will need 1 egg to test the “egg spaceship”
- DO NOT CLIMB OR STAND ON ANYTHING UP HIGH WITHOUT SOMEONE ELSE THERE TO “SPOT” OR CATCH YOU.
Creating the “egg spaceship”
Encourage students to be creative in their approach. Keep in mind the instructional considerations above, especially in the use of materials.
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