Presentation shared by author at the 2015 EDEN Open Classroom Conference "Open Discovery Space: Transforming schools into innovative learning organisations" held on 18-21 September 2015, in Athens, Greece. Find out more on #OCCAthens here: http://www.eden-online.org/eden-events/open-classroom-conferences/athens2015.html

1. Maria Eleftheriou, Science Teacher, Lyceum of Tzermiadon, Crete, Greece
marel@physics.uoc.gr,http://researchgate.net/MariaEleftheriou2
Landing on a comet!
The Rosetta project.
Scenario based on Rosetta's expedition. How pupils can learn through the great
achievements of European Space Agency (ESA).
First prize in the Pan-European contest of Open Discover Space for
the best educational scenario of 2014-2015.

2. Lyceum of Tzermiadon, Lassithi, http://1lyk-
tzerm.las.sch.gr

3. Innovative projects in our school: seismograph of QCN, hydrobot,
arduino platforms, science and art, erasmus+, digital festival and much
more!

4. Open Discovery Space portal

5. Creating the community for the
school

6. Working with the platform (authoring
tool)

7. Goal of this scenario:
✤ We implement new ideas and good practices in the
science's school curriculum in secondary education
using inquiring based learning.
✤ The scenario has two important aspects: on one hand
we stimulate the learning process with innovative
techniques such as simulations and ICT tools, on the
other hand pupils learn not only the very important
physical laws but also the latest scientific achievements
in space science.

8. Learning objectives:
✤ Inquiring based learning.
✤ Working into teams. Learn to cooperate.
✤ Searching on the web, learn to find the necessary info.
✤ Playing and learning through ICT tools:interactive physics, scratch
application, crater's simulator (all freeware).
✤ Approaching the problem from different methods.
✤ 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.

9. Phase A: Introduction to the
problem
✤ Organization of the class into teams.
✤ Presentation of the esa's latest achievement through
videos and pictures.
✤ Discussion: Teacher gives the guidelines and what we
want to explore in this project.

11. Phase B: Playing and collection of
data
✤ The teacher has already taught Newton's first and
second law, equations of motion for free fall and
constant acceleration, deceleration.
✤ We use scratch application or the tracker program
where pupils play with the free fall of an object.
Changing the parameter of the acceleration observe
the different track of the object.

12. Collection of data: searching on the
web
✤ Philae perform 2 bounces until its final destination on the comet
67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
✤ Rosetta left Philae 22.5 Km above the surface of 67P.
✤ Philae reach 67P for the first time with a velocity υ=1 m/s.
✤ Philae perform its first bounce with an initial velocity υ=0.38 m/s,
1Km high and lasted approximately 2 hours.
✤ The second bounce lasted 7 min with an initial velocity υ= 0.03
m/s.

13. Phase C: Some Physics! Activity
#1

14. Phase C: Some Physics! Activity #
1
✤ Pupils assume constant g as Philae falls on the comet
67P. They assume deceleration after Philae's first
bounce till the maximum height, therefore:
✤ Pupils also find:

15. Phase C: Activity #2: working as a
researcher
✤ Pupils use Interactive Physics trying to simulate the
landing of Philae. Some tests are needed:
✤ Homogeneous gravitational field g=9.81 m/s^2
✤ Homogeneous gravitational field g=1 m/s^2
✤ Homogeneous gravitational field g=0.001 m/s^2
✤ The masses (Philae, comet) are the real ones.

16. Interactive physics: g=9.81 m/s^2

17. Interactive physics: g=1 m/s^2

18. Interactive physics: g=0.001 m/s^2

19. Simulation with realistic dimensions
✤ Pupils perform simulation using a sphere for the comet
of radius 1Km (real dimensions of comet are 4.1 Km x
3.2 Km x 1.3 Km)
✤ In the previous simulations Philae falls due to
homogeneous gravity field. In this simulation we
activate the planetary interaction between Philae and
comet. The total force on Philae is computed as the
simulation runs.

20. Simulation derives F=0.066N,
g=0.0066m/s^2

21. Comparison between analytical
and simulation
✤ Very good agreement between the two different
methods. Very good agreement also with the real
value of g on the comet 67P, see for example:
http://spacenews.com/42527european-spacecraft-
touches-down-on-comet

22. Phase D: Activity #3
✤ What will be happen if the comet 67P fall on Earth? Craters with the Impact
Calculator on Down2Earth (Go-lab repository): http://education.down2earth.eu

23. Numerical results

24. Conclusions
✤ Space science is very attractive! Pupils are curious about space.
✤ Non conventional way of teaching cultivate creativity.
✤ Interdisciplinary of the scenario increase pupils motivation of
learning.
✤ Pupils of low grades are proved to be very skillful to ICT activities.
✤ A challenging problem gives inspiration to the pupils.
✤ ODS platform is a powerful tool and gives many options.
Thank you very much!