The Earth rotates through days

The students will be a part of a model showing how the Earth's rotation creates what we see as a sunrise and sunset every twenty-four hours.

A lesson plan for grades 3–4 Science

By Christine Shatto

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Related topics

• Learn more about Earth, astronomy, demonstrations, environmental science, rotation, science, sun, and time.

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Learning outcomes

The students will be able to explain how and why different parts of the Earth have sunlight at different times.

Teacher planning

Time required for lesson

1 hour

Materials/resources

• one flashlight
• one globe
• five blank word cards
• scissors, glue, and pencils for each student

Pre-activities

The night before the lesson, have students look toward the sunset and note the direction he/she is facing. Then have them look to see if the sunrise the next morning occurs in the same or opposite direction.

Activities

1. Show the mounted globe to the class. Explain that this is the planet Earth.
2. Have a student come up and point to the country we live in. Pick another student to make a USA word card.
3. As the student remains in that spot with his/her finger pointing, rotate the globe 180 degrees. Explain that the planet Earth constantly rotates very slowly. Now ask the student what country he/she is pointing at. Pick a student to make a China word card.
4. Have another student come up and point to where the USA is now. Explain the fact that these two countries are on opposite sides of the planet Earth.
5. Ask the students what they see shining in the sky when they are playing outside. Have a student make a sun word card.
6. Display the word cards “daytime” and “nighttime.” Remind the students that these are compound words, and have the class read them. Then ask the class if they see the sun in the daytime or nighttime.
7. Set the globe up on a table or desk in front of the room. Pick two students to stand to the left of the globe and one student to stand to the right of the globe. Using the word cards, label the student on the left the “sun” and give him/her the flashlight. Give the other student on the left the “daytime” card and the student on the right the “nighttime” card.
8. Let the sun student turn on the flashlight and shine it on the USA. Ask the rest of the class to explain what they see. Where is the sun shining? Where is it daytime? Where is it nighttime?
9. Now ask the students what the Earth does very slowly. As they say rotate, turn the globe 180 degrees, so that the USA is now facing away from the sun and toward the nighttime student. Ask the class to explain what they see. Where is the sun shining? Where is it daytime? Where is it nighttime?
10. Repeat steps 8 and 9 until the class can explain what is happening. Turn off the flashlight and put the globe aside.
11. Now pick three new students to be the sun, nighttime, and daytime. Pick two students to be USA and China, and have them stand back to back, facing opposite ways. Be sure the students understand that these two students are positioned the same way as the countries on the globe.
12. Have USA and China hook elbows, while remaining back to back. Now let the sun turn the flashlight on, and have the countries rotate slowly. Let the rest of the class explain what is happening. Give each student a chance to be one of the parts of the model.

Assessment

Ask the students to explain the parts of the model and what it demonstrated. Let each student cut and paste a diagram of what they just demonstrated. Have students explain daytime and nighttime in their journals.

Rubric:

1. The Earth rotates.
2. Only part of the Earth faces the sun at a time.
3. Daytime is when that part of the Earth faces the sun.
4. When it is not daytime, that part of the Earth faces away from the sun, and it is nighttime.

Supplemental information

Comments

This lesson was designed for an Exceptional Children’s class spanning grades K–5. Parts of the lesson apply to different curriculum levels. This is the introductory lesson for a month-long unit on time.