Document Type

Instructional Material

Publication Date

9-11-2009

Abstract

This unit focuses on the interactions and motions of the earth, sun, and moon that cause seasons, the lunar cycle and tides on earth. Most middle school age students have misconceptions of these topics. The primary goal of this unit to correct any misconceptions students may have on these topics. Secondly, to further their understanding of how and why things on earth happen the way they do. For each of the topics covered no one single rule or individual event will cover all the aspects involved in the great question of “Why?”. Students will be challenged because they will have to look models of things much larger than their immediate world, analyze them, and develop multiple cause and effect relationships to explain the phenomena. The performance assessments will require the student to apply some very drastic changes to the earth sun moon systems operation and explain how these changes will affect life on earth. Student groups will role play as expert scientists & government officials, making presentations and challenging the presentations. This unit’s assessment piece could be combined with some of the TEKS involving weather, convection currents, and Oceans to include interactions of multiple systems, forcing the student to assimilate ever more concepts, and make more precise predictioins.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

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