5th Grade Astronomy Unit: Lesson 18

5^th Grade Astronomy Unit Blueprint

Stars

Lesson 18: DSM Astronomy Activity 2 (As the Earth Turns) & Reading "National Geographic—Stars"

Pacing Suggestions:
2 days

Teacher Resources:
Tips	Starry Night Settings Lesson 18

Essential & Unit Questions* ¹

Benchmarks ²

Formative and Summative Assessments ³

Using Assessments to Monitor Student Learning

Why do patterns of stars in the sky appear to move across the night sky?

What causes day and night?

As the Earth Turns Activity

4A(3-5)#1: The patterns of stars in the sky stay the same, although they appear to move across the sky nightly, and different stars can be seen in different seasons.

4B(3-5)#2: Like all planets and stars, the earth is approximately spherical in shape. The rotation of the earth on its axis every 24 hours produces the night-and-day cycle. To people on earth, this turning of the planet makes it seem as though the sun, moon, planets, and stars are orbiting the earth once a day.

As the Earth Turns worksheet, Questions 4, 5, and 7

As the Earth Turns

Question 4 on As the Earth Turns: As students work with the model and simulate the earth turning, do they understand that the stars appear to move to a person on earth? Do they understand that just as in the model, the stars are in fixed positions in the sky?
Question 5: By comparing the two models, do students know that the stars patterns are in fixed positions, but they all appear to move westward throughout the night?
Question 7: Are students able to clearly articulate that the rotation of the earth, not the sun, is producing day and night (sunrise/sunset)?

If stars are many different sizes, some bigger than the sun, why do they look so small in the sky?

Reinforce through "Star" book:

4A(3-5)#5: Stars are like the sun, some being smaller and some larger, but so far away that they look like points of light.

4A(K-2)#1: There are more stars in the sky than anyone can count, but they are not scattered evenly and they are not all the same in brightness and color.

Class discussion/processing of book

Class discussion of read-aloud:

Do students appear to be aware of the information contained in the book or do they have many questions related to the specific benchmarks addressed within the book (particularly the last two listed benchmarks)?

* Essential/Unit questions are major questions driving the unit. They are directly aligned with the benchmarks. No single lesson addresses each question in its entirety. By the end of the unit, students should be able to answer these core questions.

1. For conceptual benchmarks.
2. Bolded sections indicate portion of benchmark addressed
3. Unless noted as a Summative Assessment, the assessments are formative and should be used to guide teaching and learning.

5th Grade Astronomy Unit Blueprint

5^th Grade Astronomy Unit Blueprint