Download CI513 Instruction and Technology Lesson Planning Guide

Name(s): Brea Norman
Age/Grade Level: 3/4
Subject Area(s): Science
Unit: Our Amazing Solar System
Topic: Asteroids, Meteoroids, and Comets Time Allotted: 1 hour
Purpose/rationale for the lesson: Why are you teaching this lesson?
Student will learn about asteroids, meteoroids, and comets so that they
understand that there are other types of objects orbiting the Sun. Students will
investigate these other satellites of the Sun in our Solar System.
What curriculum framing question or essential question is addressed in this
lesson?
What are the other satellites of the Sun in our Solar System, besides planets?
What district, state or national curriculum standard(s) will you target in this lesson?
Prior Knowledge/Background Information: What concepts and/or skills do students
need to have in order to be successful in this lesson?
Students should know that the planets rotate around our Sun. Other kinds of
satellites orbit the sun also, but they are much smaller bits of matter. They should
know how and why planets rotate around our Sun. Students should know the order
of the planets, starting with the sun as well as the shape of their orbits.
Learning Objectives for the lesson: What do you expect learners to know and/or
accomplish as a result of participating in this lesson? How are you incorporating
higher order thinking?
Students will investigate asteroids, meteroroids, and comets and know that they
are objects that orbit the sun.
Students will understand the difference between asteroids, meteroids, and comets.
Students will know what the asteroid belt is and where it is located.
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Students will know that gravity is the force that pulls a meteroid towards a planet.
Key Concept(s): What concepts (related to content and/or process) will students
encounter as a result of this lesson?
Aestroids are tiny planets, and most are concentrated in an area between the
orbits of Mars and Jupiter, called the aestroid belt.
Meteroids are small bits of debris from comets and gragments of rock and metal,
which orbit the sun. If the meteroid’s orbit brings it too close to a planet, the
planet’s gravity captures the meteroid and pulles it toward the planet’s surface.
As the friction increases, the meteroid heats up and begins to burn and glow. Now
it is called a meteor, or a shooting star. Any part of the metor that does not burn
up completely in the atmosphere and eventually hits the planet’s surface is called
a meteorite. The indentation it makes as it crashes into the planet’s surface is
called a crater.
Comets are huge, dirty snowballs of ice-covered dust and rock particles. The sun’s
radiation begins to vaporize its icy covering, sending gases and find particles
straming away from the comet’s head in a shining tail. It is the sunlight reflecting of
particles in the comet’s tail that makes to comet visible to us on Earth.
Key Question(s): What questions/prompts will you build into your lesson plan to
foster student engagement and higher order thinking?
What objects are satellites of the Sun? Do you think that the Sun has any other
satellites?
What is the name of the force that might attract a meteoroid toward a planet?
What would happen if a meteoroid’s orbit brought it close to a planet?
What would happen if the asteroid of meteoroid were pulled all the way to the
surface of the planet?
Who has ever seen a shooting star?
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What do you think causes the meteor to burn?
Do you think an object moving through the atmosphere encounters friction? What
will happen to the meteoroid as it continues to push its way through the
atmosphere toward a planet’s surface?
What do you think a comet is? What do you think makes a comet visible to us on
Earth?
Is there a difference between what makes a comet visible and what maes a
meteor visible?
Materials/Resources Needed:
Day one: Asteroids and Meteoroids
1. 5 pound bag of flower (for each group)
2. 9 ¼ x 11 ¾ “ aluminum pan (for each group)
3. Brown tempra paint (for each group)
4. Meter stick (for each group)
5. Ruler (for each group)
6. Newspaper (for each group)
7. Balance scale (for each group)
8. Tweezers (for each group)
9. Toothpicks (for each group)
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10. Pencil (for each group)
11. Paper strips (for each group)
12. 1 grape (for each group)
13. 1 marble (for each group)
14. 1 ping-pong ball (for each group)
15. 1 golf ball (for each group)
16. 1 tennis ball (for each group)
Day two: Comets
1. White construction paper comet pattern sheet (for each student)
2. Iridescent curling ribbon (for each student)
3. Tape
4. Two-inch Styrofoam ball (for each student)
Procedures: Overview of the lesson and time estimate for each component.
Include expanded descriptions of what the teacher and students are doing.
Third and Fourth graders, today we are going to learn about asteroids, meteoroids,
and comets. Our nine planets are satellites of our Sun, but the Sun has other
satellites also. They are other types of objects that orbit the Sun. Today you will
investigate these objects.
1. In a power point presentation, explain that: (10 minutes)
a. An asteroid is a very small, rocky planet that orbits the Sun.
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b. Meteoroids are like miniature asteroids, chunks of rock and metal that
orbit the Sun.
c. Asteroids and Meteoroids are located in the Asteroid Belt, in the area
between Mars and Jupiter.
2. Have a volunteer come to the front of the classroom and point out where
the Asteroid Belt is located and label is “Asteroid Belt”. Then, have a second
volunteer take a black marker and draw about 20 scattered dots of different
sizes on the Solar System model to represent asteroids orbiting in the asteroid
belt (5 minutes).
3. Using a power point presentation, explain to students and have a group
discussion about the difference between a meteoroid, meteor, meteorite,
and a crater. On the power point presentation have a picture of each with
a brief explanation, and explain how they are all related to one another (10
minutes):
a. Meteoroid: one of the countless bits of rock and metal, smaller than
an asteroid, which orbits the Sun or a planet.
b. Meteor: a meteoroid falling through a planet’s atmosphere and
burning brightly because of friction.
c. Meteorite: the part o a meteor that crashes into the surface of a
satellite.
d. Crater: the bowl-shaped depression in the surface of a satellite
caused by the impact of a meteorite.
e. Gravity: the force that might attract a meteoroid toward a planet.
Meteoroid -> meteor -> meteorite -> crater (because of gravity!).
4. Have students get into groups of five. Pass out the materials to each group.
Explain directions to students, and pass out work sheet that goes along with
the lesson (30 minutes):
a. Put the pan on the newspaper. Fill the pan with flour, three inches
deep.
b. Weigh each meteorite object and record it’s mass.
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c. Select an object and hold it above the pan at 20 centimeters high.
Drop the object into the flour. Carefully remove the object and look
at the “crater” that it has formed.
d. Measure the crater’s width and depth, and then record your
measurements.
e. Repeat there steps with each of the objects.
f. Repeat dropping each object at 60 cm, 1 m, and 2 m and record
data.
5. Debrief lesson and as a group, discuss what we saw and what we noticed.
Make a classroom chart, which compares the crater size of each object at
each height (as time permits).
Third and Fourth graders, today we are going to learn about asteroids, meteoroids,
and comets. Our nine planets are satellites of our Sun, but the Sun has other
satellites also. They are other types of objects that orbit the Sun. Today you will
investigate these objects.
1. In a power point presentation, explain that: (10 minutes)
a. A comet is a ball of cosmic snow, ice, and dust that comes from the
icy cold edges of the solar system and orbits the Sun.
b. As a comet’s orbit brings it closer to the Sun, the Sun’s heat turns some
of its snow into gas, which forms the comet’s tail.
c. As the comet moves away from the Sun, its tail gradually disappears.
d. We can see comets because it does not encounter enough friction in
space to cause it to heat up and burn. When the ice turns to vapor
(from the Sun melting it), particles of dust trapped in the ice break
free. Radiation streaming out from the Sun pushes this material away
from the comet in a long tail that always points away from the Sun.
These particles reflect sunlight, and it is this reflected sunlight that
makes the comet visible to us on Earth.
2. Have students work on “A Comet’s Orbit” worksheet. They will make 8-10
dots along the elliptical orbit to represent the comet at different points of its
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orbit. They will label the perihelion and the aphelion of the comet’s orbit.
They will draw the comet’s tail (remembering that it always points away from
the sun) (10 minutes).
3. Students will construct a comet using white construction paper, a Styrofoam
ball, and iridescent curling ribbon.
a. Students will cute out a white construction paper copy of the comet
pattern.
b. Students will tape several pieces of iridescent ribbon at the pointed
end of the pattern.
c. Keeping the taped ribbon ends on the inside, the student overlaps the
straight edges of the pattern to form a cone and pokes a two-inch
Styrofoam ball into the open end.
d. Adjust the size of the cone until it fits snugly around the ball.
e. Tape the overlapped edges of the pattern.
f. Glue the ball inside the cone.
Extensions/Differentiations: How will you adapt this lesson for students with cultural,
linguistic, and cognitive differences?
This lesson is differentiated because it has a verbal linguistic and visual aspect to
the presentation. Students are able to converse, see examples, and learn through
doing. Students are also put into groups, so they are able to work as a team to
learn together and from one another.
Attention to Literacy: How is literacy addressed in this lesson?
Literacy is addressed in this lesson when students are able to hear, read, and see
the power point. Also, students are able to have discussions about the material
that is being presented and explored.
Assessment:
Students will be assessed in the first part of the lesson by looking at the progress
that they made and the data that they collected on their meteorite worksheet.
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The data will not be the same for all groups, but the students should gather that
the bigger objects made bigger craters, and the higher you drop the object, the
bigger the crater is.
Students will be assessed in the second part of the lesson by looking at their comet
worksheet. Students should label the perihelion and the aphelion correctly
(especially since this has been previously covered), and they should have the
comet tail always facing away from the sun.
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