Drop some fun into your class room with this science resource, Thank Goodness for Gravity, for grades 3-5 from PBS LearningMedia. The boy featured in this 5+ minute video has concerns about spinning through space on Earth until he is introduced to a Foucault pendulum. He learns that French scientist Jean Bernard Léon Foucault used his knowledge of pendulums to demonstrate Earth’s rotation and how that movement is a steady, measurable motion rather than a dangerous one.

Three resources with related content, also for grades 3-8, accompany the video:

Earth in Motion: Seasons – An interactive

Experimenting with a Pendulum – A video

Virtual Pendulum – An interactive

This material aligns to the PBS LearningMedia curriculum framework for Science:  Earth Movement, the Solar System, Gravity, and Objects in Motion.