Space innovators
View Sequence overviewStudents will:
- explore and investigate variable day and night length.
- consider the impact variable day and night length has on their life and the lives of others.
Students will represent their understanding as they:
- contribute to discussions about variable day and night length.
- draw a labelled diagram to represent their learning.
In this lesson, assessment is formative.
Feedback might focus on:
- how students model the orbit and rotation of the Sun and Earth, as well as the tilt of the Earth.
- the conclusions that students draw from this modelling/simulation.
Class science journal (digital or hard-copy)
Midnight sun Antarctica (1:49)
Optional: a strong lamp to model the Sun’s light
Optional: a wooden skewer or similar
Optional: a styrofoam ball
To demonstrate the group investigation you will need the following:
A strong lamp/torch to model the Sun’s light
A ball to represent Earth
A sticker or label to place on the ball to represent the location of Australia
A strong lamp/torch to model the Sun’s light
A ball to represent Earth
A sticker or label to place on the ball to represent the location of Australia
Individual science journal (digital or hard-copy)
Lesson
Re-orient
Refer back to the experiences of Lessons 2 and 3, reviewing:
- the terms ‘orbit’ and ‘revolve’.
- the sentences composed in Lesson 3 to explain what causes day and night.
- why a day is 24 hours long.
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkIdentifying and constructing questions is the creative driver of the inquiry process. It allows students to explore what they know and how they know it. During the Inquire phase of the LIA Framework, the Question routine allows for past activities to be reviewed and to set the scene for the investigation that students will undertake. The use of effective questioning techniques can influence students’ view and interpretation of upcoming content, open them to exploration and link to their current interests and science capital.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to spend some time considering the mindset of students at the start of each Inquire phase. What do you want students to be thinking about, what do they already know and what is the best way for them to approach the task? What might tap into their curiosity?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkWhat’s happening in Antarctica?
Watch the video Midnight Sun Antarctica (1:49).
Watch the first 1-2 seconds of the video before pausing. Draw students’ attention to the timestamp at the bottom of the recording (this is different from the YouTube timestamp). The time visible will be around 02:30-03:30. Discuss what this time of the day is like, what students are typically doing at that time of the day, what they expect Antarctica to be like at this time, and what the people there (scientists mostly) would be doing.
NOTE: The recording device is measuring in 24-hour time. However, as sunlight is clearly visible, students are likely to assume that the footage was captured in the afternoon.
As you watch, note that at 21 seconds (according to the YouTube timestamp) the video time on the recording device clicks over to 13:00. Discuss 24-hour time and acknowledge that the video started at a time students would consider “the middle of the night”.
As you continue to watch the video, draw students’ attention to the time and the level of daylight visible. Re-watch the video as required.
Determine the perspective the video is taken from (an ‘Earth’ view).
Pose the question: How can Antarctica experience ‘daytime’ all day, and not have night?
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkThe Investigate routine provides students with an opportunity to explore the key ideas of science, to plan and conduct an investigation, and to gather and record data. The investigations are designed to systematically develop content knowledge and skills through increasingly complex processes of structured inquiry, guided inquiry and open inquiry approaches. Students are encouraged to process data to identify trends and patterns and link them to the real-world context of the teaching sequence.
When designing a teaching sequence, consider the diagnostic assessment (Launch phase) that identified the alternative conceptions that students held. Are there activities that challenge these ideas and provide openings for discussion? What content knowledge and skills do students need to be able to complete the final (Act phase) task? How could you systematically build these through the investigation routines? Are there opportunities to build students’ understanding and skills in the science inquiry processes through the successive investigations?
Read more about using the LIA Framework24 hours of day!
Discuss with students whether any of the models they worked with in Lesson 2 could be used to explain how Antarctica can have periods where it faces the Sun for the whole 24 hours of the day. Note that Antarctica also has periods where it faces away from the Sun for whole days at a time and constantly experiences night.
Inform students that they are now ‘switching’ to Astronaut view to try and work out how Antarctica might experience 24-hour periods of sunlight and darkness.
Show students a ball, representing a 3D model of the Earth. Place a sticker/label at the location of Antarctica. Using a light source to represent the Sun, model that a 24-hour day or night cannot be fully explained by the Earth simply rotating.
In collaborative teams, students use a light source and a model of the Earth (with Antarctica marked) to investigate how they might position the Earth so that Antarctica is facing the Sun for a full rotation of the Earth.
Allow teams time to explore what they might do to achieve this. Ask them to make a claim, if possible, about the position the Earth would have to be in to make this possible.
Monitor groups as they explore, prompting students to tilt the ball at various angles as required.
The Inquire phase allows students to cycle progressively and with increasing complexity through the key science ideas related to the core concepts. Each Inquire cycle is divided into three teaching and learning routines that allow students to systematically build their knowledge and skills in science and incorporate this into their current understanding of the world.
When designing a teaching sequence, it is important to consider the knowledge and skills that students will need in the final Act phase. Consider what the students already know and identify the steps that need to be taken to reach the level required. How could you facilitate students’ understanding at each step? What investigations could be designed to build the skills at each step?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkFollowing an investigation, the Integrate routine provides time and space for data to be evaluated and insights to be synthesized. It reveals new insights, consolidates and refines representations, generalises context and broadens students’ perspectives. It allows student thinking to become visible and opens formative feedback opportunities. It may also lead to further questions being asked, allowing the Inquire phase to start again.
When designing a teaching sequence, consider the diagnostic assessment that was undertaken during the Launch phase. Consider if alternative conceptions could be used as a jumping off point to discussions. How could students represent their learning in a way that would support formative feedback opportunities? Could small summative assessment occur at different stages in the teaching sequence?
Read more about using the LIA FrameworkTilted Earth
Teams present their findings to the class and (if they can) make a claim about how the Earth might be positioned so that Antarctica is facing the sun for a full rotation.
Discuss what students noticed during their modelling, with a focus on the location of Antarctica relative to the Sun throughout the year. Determine through questioning and discussion that, if Antarctica receives light from the Sun constantly for some of the year and no light at all some of the year, then it must be angled towards the Sun for part of the year and angled away from the Sun for part of the year. Continue on to explore if the same applies to the Arctic.
Next, explore what this means for the varying number of daylight hours we receive in Australia across the course of the year. Make a generalisation, applicable to your location in Australia, about daylight and darkness hours and how they change over course of the year. For example: In September/October the days are beginning to become longer. We know this because it is still light later at night. In January/December the days are longer and we see more sunshine. We can stay outside until much later without the need for a torch or other artificial light source. As it moves into March and June the days begin to get shorter. By July and August, the darkness hours are the longest.
You might support this by looking at data on sunrise and sunset times for today’s date at your location, making a note of them in the class science journal (Sunrise and Sunset in Australia is a good resource for this). Select another day approximately three months ago, also noting sunrise and sunset times. Repeat twice more so that you have represented (approximately) quarterly Sunrise and Sunset times for your location.
Give collaborative teams time to again explore the concepts using their 3D model, this time focusing on the location of Australia, and how it is angled towards the Sun during different times of the year. Focus on the difference between rotation, which provides day and night, and orbit (with angle), which provides variable day and night length.
Introduce the term ‘axis’ and discuss. This might be modeled using a skewer or similar pushed through a styrofoam ball.
Discuss how the 3D model students were working with can be drawn as a 2D model using an Astronaut view. Suggest that students may need to draw two or more diagrams to show the Earth orbiting around the Sun at different times of the year.
Allow students time to complete a 2D diagram/s from the Astronaut view showing how the rotation, orbit and tilt of the Earth cause days and nights that are different lengths throughout the year.
Ask students how long they think it takes for the Earth to orbit around the sun, and why they think that. Refer back to the generalisations made about daylight hours over the course of the year and determine that these are cyclical and repeated every year, therefore the orbit around the sun must take a year, or 365 days.
Optional: Discuss how Earth's orbit actually takes approximately 365 and $\frac{1}{4}$ days, so every 4 years we have an extra day in a leap year to make up for these extra $\frac{1}{4}$s.
Reflect on the lesson
You might:
- consider the original question posed before the investigation: How can Antarctica experience ‘daytime’ all day, and not have night?. Jointly construct a sentence or two to answer this question and record it in the class science journal.
- add relevant terms to the class word wall or glossary.
- add to the L and H columns of the TWLH chart.