Landing on a comet! The Rosetta project.

Educational scenario based on the latest news of Rosetta’s expedition. How students can learn through  the great achievements of European Space Agency (ESA). Rosetta’s travel in space and the landing of Philae on comet 67P give us the opportunity to learn Newton’s Laws and to find as real researchers the acceleration of gravity of  the comet. The scenario is  finalized using  various ICT tools.

We try to implement new ideas and good practices in the science’s school curriculum in secondary education using inquiring based learning. The educational scenario has two important aspects: On one hand we try to stimulate the learning process with innovative techniques in the class such as simulations,  on the other hand students learn not only the very important physical laws but also the latest scientific achievements  in space science.

The scenario belongs to Inquiring based learning. Students: working  into teams, learn to cooperate. Searching on the web, learn to find the necessary  info. Understand  Newton’s Laws and corresponding equations of motion. —Playing and learning through ICT tools: Interaction Physics, Scratch application, Craters simulator, Trajectory web-tool (all freeware). Approach the same problem from different views. —Working  as a researcher, testing parameters, exploring different aspects of the problem and find specific value of the acceleration of gravity that is very near to the real value according to references.