General relativity is untheoretical, can be comprehended with ease by young persons, and is easily depicted by young kids in a play, drawing, or other depiction.

Steps

Part 1

Making the props

1

Make the following items out of cardboard to a size appropriate for the audience. If done from a stage, it will need to be large enough for the end row of the audience to see clearly. For the classroom, you can make smaller items and may also be able to use digital projections.

Another alternative is to make costumes for the actors but this may take longer and be a lot harder to look accurate.

2

Draw a blue Earth on cardboard. Cut it out and paint it with poster paints or watercolors.

3

Draw the Sun on cardboard. Cut it out and paint it yellowy-orange.

4

Draw a spaceship. The shuttle is a good choice. Have the spaceship contain a young person, obviously peeking out from the cargo bay area of the shuttle. Cut it out and paint it.

5

Draw a large black dot on cardboard. This will serve as the black hole. It should be placed on a bright background, so that it's easily noticeable early on. Use colored card behind it to help with this. Cut it out and paint the black hole black and if you haven't used colored card, paint some red or orange behind the black hole to illuminate it.

6

Organize lighting effects. Or, simply be ready to switch off the lights at one end of the stage or room. If this isn't possible, use a lamp near the Earth end, that gets switched off and perhaps a black sheet to carry over the Earth and Sun when needed.

Part 2

Enacting the scenario of general relativity

1

Have child actors hold the various pieces. Arrange the Earth such that it is on the left. Next place the Sun. Put the shuttle in the forefront. Place the black hole to the right.

In summary, the positions from left to right are: Earth, Sun, shuttle, black hole.

2

Have the shuttle leaving Earth, headed towards the black hole but not near it yet. This will start off by being at normal speed, but strange things will happen as it nears the black hole. Keep the actor moving toward the black hole. As the shuttle nears the black hole, have the shuttle holding actor come to a stop and freeze. This is a true, accurate observation from Earth.

An actor portraying a viewer from Earth can make a statement along the lines of "I saw the shuttle moving from Earth but now it seems to have stopped completely as it gets near the black hole."

3

Change the focus using light, a signal or an adult (narrator) redirecting attention. This time, the viewpoint should be from the actor holding the space shuttle. Have the actor turn and pretend to eat a sandwich while looking back at Earth. For this perspective, the Earth should be spinning fast (cue the Earth actor to spin the Earth model, not the actor). In the background, have the Cosmos, Earth and Sun grow old, depicted by fading to black (cue the lighting or black sheet), all while the actor still eats the sandwich (make sure that the actor does not finish it).

4

Offer an explanation. The narrator of this play can explain that time is set aside and frozen near black holes. Reveal how special relativity is the same effect, from moving near light speed. Also explain that, from the astronaut's view near the black hole, though frozen in time, they too witness this speeding up of Earth, Sun, even watching the Universe fade to black, before finishing the sandwich.

If time permits, figure out how to depict the Earth orbiting the Sun faster than once a year. It spins like a top, if you can make a prop do that.

If time permits, (this can be presented inside of thirty seconds), explain how each person's cellphone uses GPS, and measures Earth bending space-time. On the roof of your house, there is less warped time (dilated) (bent) but at ground level, there is more bending. Time passes more quickly near something heavy. A black hole is very, very, heavy, compacting the Earth to a golf ball size could create a black hole. Also point out that leaving Earth at near the speed of light makes time do the same thing––the astronaut goes near light speed, eating a sandwich, and the entire Earth, Sun, Cosmos, fade away and lose energy, getting dark.

If time permits, create a pre-play which shows how GPS works and is in everyone's pockets, how the Earth squashes time just as the black hole does, but less, so the nearer to Earth, the more time is squashed (or dilated).

5

Treat this as a learning opportunity that encompasses art, drama, creativity, science, comprehension and participation. It is simply Newtonian physics, not a huge challenge, and when broken down in this way, it's also a lot of fun for the kids. They can, in turn, help their parents to see that this is not difficult at all.

Follow up afterward with questions and answers, and perhaps distribute some visually appealing fact sheets for memory prompts.

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Tips

Many are quick to try to teach the written math, to reveal relativity. This is not needed, and doing it from this perspective too early on can create a giant stumbling block and put the kids off science. Instead, use glue, cardboard and paint and a sense of adventure to turn it into fun and easy learning.

Create some fact sheets or pictorial diagrams to help the children learn more and to have something to stick in their notebooks.

Why is it important to present general relativity in this way? Apart from it being easier to comprehend, many kids are pre-programmed to misunderstand what time is––basically, a very inadequate means of measuring duration––and the scientists of tomorrow are the ones who need to be free of this pre-programming. In general, nobody explains as early as first grade how simple this is to grasp.

Break the explanations down into the recognizable and the simple. While there are volumes of things to explain afterwards, such as how GPS works and why it matters, etc., at least the kids know what a cell phone is and can relate to it even if understanding what eternity is, or what black holes are, is too much for them at this point in their learning.

Warnings

Spin the Earth, not the kid, to show time passing. If the image were released and shown to quickly orbit (front and back) with strings, operated offstage, this would avoid distraction and dizziness.

Some argue that there is no proof of black holes, but this shows an extreme unwillingness to be apprised of the facts. Professor Andrea Ghez, UCLA, has imaged, shown, recorded video, of suns (stars) orbiting our Milky Way black hole. The time is now to tell what is happening now, and to avoid wrongly educating kids about general (heavy dilates time) and special (speed dilates time) relativity.