Making Light Work of Gravity: Scaffolding Middle Schoolers’ Thinking to Help Them Understand Gravitational Lensing

Abstract

Although the NGSS has helped teachers conceptualize teaching science in a more integrated way, effectively scaffolding students’ thinking within and across lessons can still be a challenge for any middle school science teacher. To help with this problem, we use a spiral ­curriculum where relevant prior concepts are revisited to connect them to new concepts. Revisiting concepts is meant to deepen students’ knowledge by scaffolding students’ thinking rather than merely repeating previous content. In our classroom, our light unit comes before our unit on space science. In this article, we demonstrate how we scaffold students’ learning to help students make connections between lessons about light (MS-PS4-2) and gravity (partially ­addressing MS-ESS1-2). We use these experiences to help students understand the phenomenon of gravitational lensing.

Keywords::

• Astronomy
• Earth and Space Science
• NGSS
• Physical Science
• Science Scope

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

We thank the Iowa Space Grant Consortium for partially funding this work.

ONLINE RESOURCES

Gravitational Lensing Illustration video—https://tinyurl.com/3vet7ejc

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIALS

Superhero activity materials—https://doi.org/10.1080/08872376.2023.2290285

Superhero symbols—https://doi.org/10.1080/08872376.2023.2290285

Gravity well activity table—https://doi.org/10.1080/08872376.2023.2290285

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jesse Wilcox

Jesse Wilcox ([email protected]) is an assistant professor of biology and science education at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. Dan Chibnall is a STEM librarian and associate professor at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. William Lange is a student at the University of Northern Iowa in Cedar Falls. Dori Clausen teaches seventh and eighth grade in Colfax-Mingo Jr./Sr. High School in Colfax, Iowa.