Wednesday, January 27, 2016

Welcome back to a snow and ice-shortened week!  Our make-up days are Monday, February 15th and Monday, April 25th.  Hopefully, that will be the end of our schedule being disrupted due to weather but who knows.  Traditionally, February and into early March is the time period in which we get the most and worst winter weather.  Two years ago we had early dismissal and that is one thing that I am hoping that we can avoid!  

Now that we are back on a normal schedule, we are able to begin the next unit in science:  Earth in the Universe.  With the exception of the few students who needed to make up the unit test from last week, the class took notes after doing the warm-up.

I then had the students go on to STEMscopes to do the online pre-assessment which only consisted of five questions to see how much they already know.  It wasn't for a grade.  Then, the students took notes:

Earth in the Universe Notes on the First Part of the Unit (Night and Day)
 
Rotation – the turning or spinning of an object on its axis
 
Axis – an imaginary straight line through an object in which it spins.  The Earth tilts and spins at an axis of 23.5°

• The rotation of the Earth causes night and day.  The side of Earth that is away from the sun and faces outer space is at night.  The side of Earth facing the sun is at daytime.
• Sunrises and sunsets are caused by the rotation of the Earth.
• The rotation of the Earth causes changes in the length of shadows.
• Shadows are longest in early morning and evening
• Shadows are shortest at noon when the sun is directly overhead
• The Earth takes about 24 hours (23 hours and 56 minutes) to make one complete rotation.
• The Earth’s rotation speed determines the length of days
• The Earth’s tilt on its axis causes the changing of the seasons as it revolves around the sun

 
Revolution – the movement of an object around another object.  One complete circle is a revolution
 
Season – periods in a year marked by changes in weather and temperature.  They are caused by the tilt of the Earth’s axis.  

• The Earth takes 365 ¼ days for a revolution around the sun (1 year)

 
Orbit – the path of an object’s revolution.  It can be circular or elliptical (oval-shaped)
 
Hemisphere - half of a spherical body such as a planet.

You can download the notes below or you can always go here to access the archive of notes from all of the units that have already been covered.

earth_in_the_universe_notes_part_1_of_the_unit.pdf
File Size:	76 kb
File Type:	pdf

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Afterwards, students continued to work on their posters in social studies.  Due to the snow days, I am going to push back the due date and allow students class time, when I can, to complete it.  I would be surprised if all of them aren't finished by Friday but we shall see.