This resource was created by Sandi Wachter, in collaboration with Lynn Bowder, as part of ESU2's Mastering the Arts project. This project is a four year initiative focused on integrating arts into the core curriculum through teacher education and experiential learning.
Description:
Build a model of the Earth, with its spin-axis, and a lamp as the Sun to demonstrate the concept of seasons.
Goals
--Understanding why we have seasons and the cause of seasonal variation in temperature.
--Learning about how the Earth rotates on a tilted axis compared to its orbit around the Sun.
Learning Objectives
--Students learn about seasons by building a model of the Earth and the Sun, and investigating how sunlight hits the Northern and Southern Hemispheres during different seasons.
--Students explain that the same amount of light hitting the ground heats up a small area more than a large area
--Students show that the angle at which the sunlight hits the Earth influences how much the sunlight heats up the Earth.
Students demonstrate that the angle at which the sunlight hits the Earth is related to the tilt of the Earth’s rotational axis compared to the Earth’s orbit around the Sun.