Date: January 30, 2000

Grade Level(s): 5, 6

Subject(s):

• Computer Science

Description: A simple experiment investigating what causes day and night. Students graph the hours of night and day from sunrise and sunset times found on the Internet.

Goals: Students will gain an understanding of the earth's relationship to the sun.

Objectives: Students will be able to demonstrate day and night on earth, and chart the number of hours of light and darkness for one year.

Materials:

• flashlights
• balls
• graph paper
• crayons
• globe

Computer Integration:

One computer in the classroom: The teacher can print out the sunrise and sunset times ahead of time and then in class show the students where to find the information.

Limited number of computers in the classroom:
Each group will look up and print out the list of sunrise and sunset times. Also the groups can produce their charts and graphs using a spreadsheet program.

Classroom lab (1 computer for each student):
Each student will look up the sunrise and sunset times on the Internet and then produce his/her own graph using a spreadsheet program.

1. Ask students to recall the parts of the solar system. List them on the board.

2. Today we are going to investigate what causes day and night. What part of the solar system is responsible for causing day and night? (Sun) Ask the students to think about how the sun causes night when is gives off light.

3. Tell the class they are going to explore reasons for this in small groups. Explain to them that each group will be given a flashlight (the sun) and a ball (the earth) to investigate how the sun causes day and night. They need to record their findings.

4. Divide the class into groups of four. Have each person in the group take a job: sun, earth, recorder, and reporter. Review safety precaution with students and then pass out materials.

5. Let the group investigate until they seem to have a good idea of how the sun causes night and day.

6. Bring the groups back together into one large group. Ask the reporter from each group to report their findings with the rest of the class.

7. After all groups have presented their findings, explain how the earth rotates and when the sun is shining on one side of the earth it is daytime and the side that is in the shadow is nighttime.

8. Ask the class how many hours of daylight and darkness there is in a day. Write all answers on the board.

9. Tell the class they are going to chart the number of hours of light and dark for the past year.

10. Give each pair a piece of graph paper and a list of sunrise and sunset times for the past year (see computer integration). Explain to them that they will need to figure out the number of hours and how to display their information on the graph paper. Show an example.

11. When the class is done with their graphs discuss their findings.

When do we have the most hours of daylight?
When do we have the fewest hours of daylight?
When are the hours of light and dark the same?
Are the hours of light and dark the same all over the world? Why?
How would our graph look if we lived at the North or South Pole?

12. Display graphs on a bulletin board.

Assessment:

The students would be evaluated by asking the following questions about each student:

Did they investigate the problem?
Were they able to defend their results to the class?
Are their charts accurate representations of the data?