Karl,
I think it would be nice to have a playground that had gravity "turned on", so all the stuff put in it would act acording.
I made a simply version of this idea, see it at http://minnow.cc.gatech.edu/squeak/Manzana
Manzana has 2 type of playgrounds. One simulates the gravity in one planet (all the object fall down) and the other simulate the gravity in the univers (the objects atract them each other)
There are especial objects that represents forces. My son (6 years old) found really intuitive to play with forces (represented as vectors)
Then you could "view" object and it would tell you the forces.
Nice idea!
Karl
Cheers,
Diego Gomez Deck