Recently Mrs. Bishop's class did some hands-on activities in science.
One was called "Universe in a Box" and the other one with the paper plates is called "Reason for the Seasons." These two activities help students meet the Next Generation Science Standard (NGSS) 5-ESS1-2 "Represent data in graphical displays to reveal patterns of daily changes in the length and direction of shadows, day and night, and the seasonal appearance of some stars in the night sky." They watched a video to assemble the box hands-on with my guidance, practiced using the box together, created a graph using the Universe in a Box data, and answered a constructed response question. We learned why certain constellations like Orion are visible to us in the Northern Hemisphere in the winter and Scorpius is visible in the summer.
Both activities provide students with hands-on experiences to understand Earth's rotation and revolution - tough concepts made easier by them "seeing" the science phenomena in action.
