The Sun is Hot!Jessica Kaferly

&Aleisha Ariss

Lesson Overview

• K-PS3-1: Make observations to determine the effect of the sunlight on earth’s surface. [Clarification statement: Examples of Earth’s surface could include rocks, sand, soil and water.] [Assessment boundary: Assessment of temperature is limited to relative measures such as warmer/cooler.]

Lesson Overview

• Objectives:– Students will understand that the sun warms

everything on the Earth’s surface, specifically water, sand and soil.

– Students will be able to understand what life would be like without a sun.

– Pre-Knowledge: students will understand a thermometer rises with a higher temperature.

Safety

• When working with heat lamps (as we are in this activity to mock the sun), you must keep them away from students.

• Since we will be using materials that have been warmed by these heat lamps, check the temperature before passing them to students to ensure the temperature will not burn.

Key Vocabulary

•Room temperature•Heat

•Thermometer

Materials

• -sand• -water• -soil• -12 beakers• -thermometers• -paper thermometer for the

board• -3 heat lamps

Engage

• Read Sun Up, Sun Down by Gail Gibbons

Explore

• Students will feel room temperature water, sand and soil.

• Next, students will feel water, sand and soil that has been either sitting in the sun or under a heat lamp for a few hours.

• Students will help label our model thermometer on the board with the warmth of each object.

Explain

• We will talk about how the sun has warmed these items.

• Students will fill in a mock thermometer to label on their own (with pictures) where each item falls on a thermometer.

Elaborate

• Ask students: What if we didn’t have the sun? What if the sun was cold instead of hot? How would life be different?• Ask students to create a picture book showing life without a warm sun.

Evaluate

• Evaluate the picture books with a rubric:–Did the student consider how Earth’s temperature would be affected?–Did the student use his/her own ideas?–Did the student use examples that “made sense”?