Our Planet, Our Earth

During the month of April, we usually take time to think about our Earth and how we can do our part to keep the Earth clean. Earth day allows us to pause and think about these things and make plans to do our part for our planet. 

Our science unit lined up perfectly with Earth day in April, as we are currently working on the unit Our Spinning Earth. The students begin this unit with an inquiry question that we spend our unit figuring out together. Our unit question this time is, “Why does the sky look different at different times of the day?” We begin with a child talking on the phone with his grandma. They both look out the window, and the child sees a setting sun, and the grandma sees stars in the sky. 

In the classroom, lightbulbs start turning on, and ideas start to flow from partner groups and teams as they brainstorm why this may be the case.

Now it’s time to begin the investigation. We grab our coats and head outside. We start by doing a sky observation of our sky at 2:00 PM in the afternoon. Below is a picture of my students observing the sky in the afternoon. 

After we discuss our observations, we bring it back to the unit question. Some of the students shared their partner’s thoughts and ideas hitting on the idea that maybe the child and the grandma live in different places. So, the next step is to observe some skies from other places. Since we can’t travel, we use live webcams to explore even further. We checked in on 5 different webcams from all over the world. We recorded our observations in our investigation notebooks. The next day, we used globes to physically see where these webcams were located, and investigate the reason that some of the places we observed were experiencing daytime, and why some of the places we observed were experiencing nighttime. 

Next week, we will begin to answer our unit question as we go outside once again at a different part of the day to observe our sky. What has changed? Where is the sun? What is the same, and what is different from last week?

Exploring our Earth and the world around us is powerful, and these scientists are making amazing connections and having meaningful conversations with each other each day!