Galileo LEVELED BOOK • P

Galileo
A Reading A–Z Level P Leveled Book
Word Count: 797

Connections
Writing
Research to learn more about one of
Galileo’s discoveries. Write at least one
paragraph describing the discovery and
how it changed people’s understanding
of the world.
Science
Draw a diagram or create a model of
the solar system. Include details that
Galileo discovered. Share your work
with your class.
•V
P• S
Written by Keith and Sarah Kortemartin
Illustrated by Wesley Lowe

Visit www.readinga-z.com
for thousands of books and materials. www.readinga-z.com
 Galileo chandelier
experiments
Words to Know
publish
solar system
laws of nature telescope
measurements trial
model
Photo Credits:
Title page, page 10 (left): © Granger, NYC; page 4: © iStock.com/GeorgiosArt;
page 7: Alexey Gnilenkov/Alamy Stock Photo; page 10 (right): courtesy of
NASA/JPL; page 11 (Sun): © Chad Baker/Photodisc/Getty Images; page 11
(Venus): © Stocktrek Images/Stocktrek Images/Getty Images; page 11 (Earth):
© Wavebreakmedia Ltd/Wavebreak Media/Getty Images Plus; page 11
(background): © iStock.com/Natalia_80

Written by Keith and Sarah Kortemartin

Illustrated by Wesley Lowe
www.readinga-z.com
Galileo
Level P Leveled Book
Correlation
Focus Question © Learning A–Z
Written by Keith and Sarah Kortemartin LEVEL P
Illustrated by Wesley Lowe
How do questions lead to new All rights reserved.
Fountas & Pinnell
Reading Recovery
M
28
discoveries? www.readinga-z.com
DRA 28
 Switzerland Austria
England
ATLANTIC Germany
OCEAN
France

France Italy
Spain
Rome

Pisa MEDITERRANEAN SEA

Corsica
Rome

Italy

Sardinia MEDITERRANEAN
SEA

miles 0 100 200 300 400 500

kilometers 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 Sicily

Table of Contents
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Galileo’s Childhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Galileo Galilei
The Student . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
The Professor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Introduction
The Astronomer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 What do a chandelier and the planet
In Trouble with the Church . . . . . . . . . 12 Venus have in common? They each
played a part in the discoveries of one of
Science After Galileo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 history’s greatest scientists five hundred
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 years ago . His name was Galileo Galilei .

Galileo • Level P 3 4
 The Student
As a young man, Galileo wanted to learn
about math and physics (the science of
matter, energy, and motion) . He made
one of his first discoveries in physics
a year before he entered university .

One day in 1582, Galileo watched a

chandelier hanging from the ceiling
inside a church . He saw that the wind
Galileo’s Childhood
outside was making the chandelier
Galileo was born in Italy in 1564 . swing back and forth . He also saw
From a young age, he was good at something strange . Although some
asking questions . Though his questions swings were wider than others, every
got him in trouble, Galileo changed swing took exactly the same amount
the way we understand the world . of time .

Galileo • Level P 5 6
By watching the The Professor
chandelier, Galileo In 1589, Galileo returned to the university
discovered that a weight as a math professor . He continued to ask
that swings back and forth
questions and test things . For example,
can keep time . Later, he
he did several tests with falling objects
figured out how to build
to see what would happen . However,
a clock using this idea .
the discoveries that would make him
Clocks like his are still
famous were still to come .
in use today .
Do You
Galileo did not study
Know?
math when he first entered There is a famous
university in 1583 . His story about one of
Galileo’s experiments.
father wanted him to When he was a young
become a doctor instead . professor, the story
goes, he dropped
Galileo’s study of medicine two cannonballs from
never interested him the Leaning Tower of
Pisa. One cannonball
much, though . In fact, he was much heavier
never finished his studies; Grandfather clocks
such as this one still
than the other, but
they fell at the same
he left university in 1585 use pendulums to
speed. Today, it’s
keep time.
because of money problems . not certain whether
Galileo really tossed
For the next four years, Galileo taught cannonballs from
math . However, he did not give up his the Leaning Tower
of Pisa.
interest in science .

Galileo • Level P 7 8
 With his telescope, Galileo made
discovery after discovery . He saw that
the surface of the Sun sometimes had
dark spots on it . He discovered Jupiter’s
four largest moons . He was the first
person to see that the planet Venus
appeared to change shape, just as the
Moon does . Sometimes Venus looked
like a full circle, and sometimes it was
just a thin slice of light in the night sky .
The Astronomer
Galileo put some of these discoveries
In 1609, Galileo heard about a “spyglass” in a book called The Starry Messenger in
invented in the Netherlands . When a 1610 . The book made Galileo famous—
person looked through the spyglass, but fame had a price .
faraway objects looked closer . Galileo
had never seen a spyglass, but he figured
out how to build one . Soon he was able
to make objects far away look thirty
times bigger . In other words, Galileo
built a telescope . He began to use his
telescope to study the night sky . Galileo’s
telescope changed his life, and science, Galileo sketched the surface of the Moon (left) as he saw it through his
telescope in 1610. NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
forever . sent a probe to map the surface of the Moon in 1992 (right).

Galileo • Level P 9 10
During Galileo’s time, many people believed that Earth was the center of our
solar system. They thought the other planets and the Sun moved around In Trouble with the Church
Earth. They also thought that planets such as Venus moved in small circles as
they made a big circle around Earth. This would mean that Venus would only
appear as a crescent shape in the night sky when seen from Earth.
Galileo’s discoveries about the solar
system got him in trouble . The Catholic
Sun’s o
Sun r bit o
f Ea
r th
Church was not happy about his ideas
new because they were different from
Venus
’s orb Church teachings .
it of
new E ar
crescent crescent th
For centuries, the Church had taught
Venus
that Earth was the center of our solar
Earth
system . The Church believed the Sun,
Moon, planets, and stars all moved
around Earth . But Galileo’s discovery
Galileo saw through his telescope that Venus had many different shapes
when seen from Earth. These changing shapes suggested that Venus and of the changing shape of Venus didn’t
Earth were both moving around the Sun.
fit this picture . Taken together, Galileo’s
discoveries were big clues that the solar
full
nearly full nearly full system moved around the Sun, not
half half
Earth . He was not the first person
Sun
to come up with this idea . However,
his discoveries were the best proof yet
crescent crescent that Earth was not the center of our
new solar system .
Earth

Galileo • Level P 11 12
 Do You Know?
A popular, but unproven, story says that Galileo “talked back” to
the judges at his trial. The story says that Galileo whispered, “And yet
it moves” under his breath after he was forced to say that Earth did
not move around the Sun. This story is not included in the records
of the trial and is probably not true. However, the words “and yet it
moves” have become very famous; people quote them even today.

The Church did not like this idea . At that

time, the Church could put people on
trial for ideas that went against Church
teachings . In 1633, the Church put
Galileo on trial and found him guilty .
Galileo continued to write down his
Galileo was forced to say that his
ideas anyway . He published his final
discoveries had been lies, even though
book, Two New Sciences, in 1638 .
he knew they were not . The Church
ordered Galileo to stay in his home At this point, Galileo had become blind,
for the rest of his life . He was also and his health was poor . He died in 1642
told not to publish any more books . of natural causes .

Galileo • Level P 13 14
 Science After Galileo Glossary
chandelier (n.) a fancy light fixture that hangs
We now know that Galileo was right:
from the ceiling, often with
Earth does move around the Sun . branches for holding lights
Galileo’s gift for asking important (p . 4)
questions helped him make some of experiments (n.) scientific tests or trials (p . 15)
the greatest discoveries of his time . laws of nature scientific truths or principles
(n.) that explain how nature works
Galileo was the first scientist to say (p . 15)
measurements the act of finding the size,
that the laws of nature could be written
(n.) quantity, or amount of
down using math . He was also one something; figures, sizes, or
of the first scientists to always use amounts given in measured
measurements in his experiments . units (p . 15)
model (n.) a person or thing that is viewed
In this way, he made it easier for other
as an example to imitate (p . 15)
scientists to test his ideas . Galileo was a
publish (v.) to make writing available
model for many scientists who followed to the public (p . 13)
him, including Isaac Newton and Albert solar system (n.) a group of objects in space
Einstein . Today, we call him the father that orbit a star (p . 12)
of modern science . telescope (n.) an instrument used to make
distant objects look closer
(p . 9)
Science and the Catholic Church
In 1757, the Catholic Church removed Galileo’s book trial (n.) a legal process by which a person
from a list of banned books. In 1992, the Church cleared or group accused of wrongdoing
Galileo of any wrongdoing. The modern Church accepts is found innocent or guilty in a
proven scientific facts and has supported scientific research court of law (p . 13)
for centuries.

Galileo • Level P 15 16