Summary
Digs into the surprising fact that orbits are ellipses, not perfect circles — explaining Kepler's first law in kid-friendly terms and showing how a planet's distance from the sun changes as it travels around its orbit.
Viewer safety
All ages
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Teaching resources
Discussion questions
Discussion
- What shape is Earth's orbit around the sun? Is it a perfect circle?
- Why does Earth move faster in its orbit in January than in July?
- If an orbit is not a perfect circle, when is Earth closest to the sun? Farthest?
- Why aren't seasons caused by Earth's changing distance from the sun?
Quick work-a-long
Vocabulary: ellipse, orbit, perihelion, aphelion, speed, distance, focus.
Try it: Draw an ellipse using two thumbtacks, a loop of string, and a pencil. Move the tacks closer together — the ellipse gets more circular. Farther apart — more elongated. Label the two 'foci' and the sun's position.