Lesson Plan: Investigating Stars
This lesson plan includes the objectives, prerequisites, and exclusions of the lesson teaching students how to investigate the rising and setting of stars and identify and describe patterns in nature.
Objectives
Students will be able to
- identify the Sun as a star,
- identify stars and the Sun as appearing to move across the sky in a predictable pattern,
- define the terms rising and setting,
- describe how the time of rising and setting of stars changes,
- read data tables on rising and setting stars,
- identify patterns in the rising and setting of stars,
- predict the next data point in a pattern of rising or setting stars,
- use subtraction to calculate the time the stars will rise or set,
- name and identify the star Sirius.
Prerequisites
Students should already be familiar with
- comparing the day sky to the night sky,
- comparing the brightness of different stars in the night sky,
- defining the term constellation and naming some examples,
- how the spin of Earth creates day and night,
- how the spin of Earth causes the apparent movement of the Sun across the sky,
- why the Sun can be seen at day and why stars can be seen at night.
Exclusions
Students will not cover
- calculating changes in time when moving into a new hour,
- drawing a graph from a set of data.
