Modeling Earth Science Instructional Plan

The instructional plan that I implemented focused on the movement of the Earth.  Students focused on the vocabulary terms, rotation and revolution, through hands-on investigations using models.  The use of models allowed students to create and observe how these movements affect the Earth and what we view when we look at the sky. 

First, students used models to show how day and night occur.  The students labeled a post-it with an “X” and placed it on the globe.  Using the projector to represent the sun and the globe the Earth, they rotated the globe and noted that only one half of the Earth got light at a time.  The students concluded that the side facing the sun was experiencing day, while the dark half was night. 

 During the second lesson, the students focused on the phases of the moon.  For their exploration of the phases of the moon, they used a Styrofoam ball as the moon, themselves as the earth, and a lamp as the sun.  The students observing from Earth would shade the moons on their graphic organizer in order to show what they saw on the Styrofoam ball. 

Finally, to summarize their learning, the students acted out the Earth’s rotation on its axis and revolution around the sun.

  

This lesson was very successful and the students were very engaged due to the use of models.  The students were able to get a more concrete understanding of the differences between rotation and revolution, and why we have different moon phases.  The models helped to differentiate for visual learners because they provided students with a visual demonstration of how the Earth moves and how the moon reflects the sun’s light.  The students were actively engaged by performing these investigations and working with a small group.