The
Reasons for the Seasons
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The
Reasons for the Seasons |
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I chose this activity because it dealt with mesurement -- a skill that our students are lacking. I liked this activity because it got us outside on a gorgeous day. The students enjoyed being out and measuring with such a long measuring tape. They were very surprised at the difference in their guess on the length of the shadow and the actual length of the One thing I would change about this inquiry is the graphing sheet. I would put on the sheet where daylight savings time begins again in the spring and then have the graph show (with a dotted line) the daylight savings time or the following spring. I liked this inquiry. It encompasses so many different levels of math (and science) into one unit. It gets the students up and around. Ann Calico I chose this inquiry because it met an outcome of our third grade curriculum. The curriculum objectives states that, "students need to know relationships between the sun, moon, and earth, and about seasonal cycles"... As a review for our assessment test on these objectives, we completed Day 5: What Can a Model of the Sun and Earth Tell Us about the Seasons? and Day 6: Putting It All Together. My students had knowledge of this topic already since we had completed the experiments and text in our curriculum. The thing I really enjoyed about this inquiry was how the students were actively walking around the sun with the globe in their hands, while watching where the light fell on the sun. I liked how one could see how much sunlight was falling on a given part of the world. It made it really easy to see why we have summer and winter... Heidi Cook Beginning
with the (concrete) experience of the Shadow Investigation and leading
up to the (abstract) Earth/Sun model was a great way to bring home the
concepts of rotation, revolution, and global tilt. I chose this inquiry because it fulfilled my Course of Study objectives better than my textbook. I also liked the idea of a long-range activity. The concept of seasons is difficult to understand, so the hands-on approach to this unit appealed to me. I liked the prediction, measuring, and refining prediction sequence. I liked watching the children's puzzled looks when their predictions were way off. I finally learned how to read a compass. I had forgotten the reason for the seasons myself, so it was fun for us to learn together. I found the activity where you set up the lamp to show the seasons to be very difficult. I had to set it up and practice and I still thought that the potential to confuse rather than clarify was great. When I gave the proficiency assessment to the students they did not score well. I think that they understood the main reasons for the seasons but the pictures on the assessment seemed to confuse them. I will definitely review the diagrams and find other ways to review before asking students to take the assessment piece. My current unit of study before the Proficiency tests are given is about Earth. We are supposed to study the relationship between the Earth and the Sun, as well as the Earth and the moon. I just slipped this unit into the appropriate slot. Debi Gann Thanks for the helpful feedback. I will be adding photographs to the Earth/Sun Model lesson in the near future to improve understanding. I share your frustration with Earth/Sun images on tests that are difficult for concrete learners to conceptualize, but unfortunately students are expected to understand similar images for the Sixth Grade Proficiency Test. John Farmer This lesson worked well with my high school seniors who are in a remedial class because they haven't passed the 9th grade science proficiency. Sunrise and sunset data can be found at http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/. I supplemented this unit with a kinesthetic astronomy unit that I picked in another online professional development class. A copy of this lesson plan is available at http://www.spacescience.org/Education/ResourcesForEducators /CurriculumMaterials/Kin_Astro/1.html. Basically, the lesson plan requires students to orbit around a model sun (a yellow balloon would suffice) and to physically model the Earth's tilt as they do. We start out with basic motions like rotation and revolution, temporarily ignoring tilt. It's a good way to get kids to grasp the concept of counterclockwise rotation and revolution. Then, I tell kids their head is the northern hemisphere and their rear is the southern hemisphere and ask everyone to make it summer in their northern hemisphere. Students easily grasp to bend so that their head is in the northern hemisphere. But then, I ask them to rotate so it is nighttime on their nose. This is where the learning begins, because most kids rotate still bend forward from the waist meaning their northern hemisphere is pointing away from the Sun. I can then introduce the idea that the tilt is constantly pointed toward the North Star. It takes several repetitions for everyone to get it, but they usually do. (None of my kids are going to show up in a Private Universe video. At least not about seasons, anyway.) The flagpole shadow activity did not work as well because the course is a one semester course. So, one group wasn't able to collect data over the whole year. Sandee Coats-Haan |