Over the last 500 years humans have gone from seeing a man in the moon to seeing a man on the moon. This phenomenal advance in collective learning has taken place thanks in large part to a group of strategies which have come to be referred to as The Scientific Method. If humankind has made so much progress by using the Scientific Method, then why not teach all our children to use it at an early age rather than waiting until high school or college to teach a few who are fast-tracked into science and technology careers. If we have made this much progress with a few humans using these strategies, then what will our collective learning curve look like if we are all trained to make science discoveries and/or to appreciate the discoveries of others?

Sunday, October 14, 2007

SUNRISE AND MOONRISE



OBJECTIVE: STATE AND TEST A HYPOTHESIS ABOUT THE TIMES OF SUNRISE/SUNSET AND MOONRISE/MOONSET FOR ONE WEEK.

Introduction:
What time does the sun rise and set? What time does the moon rise and set?
Most of us who live in urban areas can accurately tell you what time the sun rises and sets to within about an hour. However, many city dwellers have the misconception that the moon rises as the sun sets and the moon sets as the sun rises. Perhaps this is because buildings block the horizon and light pollution makes it difficult to see the moon and stars at night. Perhaps it is because we think of the moon as being the exact opposite of the sun. We are likely to notice the full moon as it rises at around six in the evening, but we rarely notice the moon rising in the middle of the morning or afternoon. The truth is that the moon rises and sets about 50 minutes later every day. This means that it rises and sets at all hours of the day and night.
In this activity, students will state their ideas about how the time of sunrise/sunset compare to the time of moonrise/moonset. Then, they will use secondary data to confirm or refute their hypothesis.

Time Needed: Two to three periods

Materials:

Graph paper: 1 cm square
#2 pencil
1 table of data for times of sunrise/sunset for one week
1 table of data for times of moonrise/moonset for one week.

Procedure:

I. Sunrise/Sunset

1. Ask students to give the approximate time of sunrise/sunset. Write their ideas on the board.
2. Ask students to write a hypothesis about the times of sunrise and sunset in their science journals.
3. Hand out the table of one week of sunrise/sunset times. Ask students to find patterns in the times. As they share their ideas, write them on the board.
4. Ask students to compare the data to their hypothesis. How close was their hypothesis to the real times?
5. Have students write a short paragraph about whether the data confirms or does not confirm their hypothesis.
6. Discuss the 12-hour clock vs the 24-hour clock.
7. Model the 24 hour clock by writing hours 0 through 23 and matching them with 12 AM through 11PM times.
Example:
0 hrs = 12 am; 1 = 1 am 2 = 2 am
12 = 12 pm 13 = 1 pm 14 = 2 pm 23 = 11PM

8. Hand out graph paper.
9. Have students label the y axis from 0 hours to 23 hours.
10. Then ask them to label the same axis from 12 am to 11 pm.
11. Ask students to label the x axis with the dates of the week.
12. Demonstrate where to mark the hours, half hours, and quarter hours on the graph.
13. Demonstrate how to make a bar graph of the sunrise times by making a horizontal line across the bar, and labeling it “S”. It might also be useful to label the line with the exact time of sunrise.
14. Emphasize that sunrise is an exact time and does not represent more than one minute on the bar.
15. Have the students repeat #13 on their own with the times for sunset.
16. Ask students to shade in with their pencils the part of the bar in which the sun was not in the sky (before Rise and after Set).
17. Students should then make sure they have a title for their graph, that each axis is labeled, and that they have a key for “time in the sky” vs “time not in sky”.
18. Assign students to write an analysis of the pattern or patterns they see in the graph.

Moonrise/Moonset

19. Repeat the procedure for #1-16 with moonrise/moonset times for the present week.
20. Have students write a comparison/contrast paragraph about the times of sunrise/sunset and the times of moonrise/moonset and the patterns they see in the graphs.
21. Have the students write a reflection on what they thought about sunrise/sunset before and what they think now. How have their ideas about the sun and moon changed?

Vocabulary: bar graph, x-axis, y-axis, 12-hour clock, 24 hour clock,

NYS Science Standards:

Standard 1 Analysis, Inquiry, and Design: Scientific Inquiry
Key Idea #1 S1.1, S1.2, S1.3 S1.4
Key Idea #3 S3.1, S3.2, S3.3
Standard 4 The Physical Setting
Key Idea #1 PS 1.1e-j
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