Lesson Plan of Looking at Stars General Science Grade VII

Students’ Learning Outcomes

·         Identify major constellations visible at night in the sky.
·         Identify bodies in space that emit and reflect light.
·         Suggest safety methods to use when observing the sun.

Information for Teacher

·         Constellations are the patterns of stars that aid in mapping the sky.
·         Earth rotation causes the stars to appear to move.
·         Earth revolution causes the constellations to appear during certain parts of the year.
·         Some constellations have many stars while some have only a few.
·         A circumpolar constellation appears to move in a circle around the pole.
·         Circumpolar constellations in the northern hemisphere include the big & little dippers like Cassiopeia, CEPHEUS and Draco.
·         Some bodies in space have their own light while some reflect light of the other stars. For example the sun has its own light and moon only reflect its light.
·         Same safety methods to view the sun are to use the:
  
1)      Blacked X-Ray film
2)      Welder’s glass.
3)      Pinhole camera.

Material / Resources

A chart of big bear like URSA major six pieces of chalks of black & blue color, 10 gummed stars, white crayon, blue or black computer sheet, pencil & pages

Worm up activity

·         Paste the gummed star on the black paper.
·         Ask the student to think about some imaginary objects which they could make with the help of stars like hen, duck, bear etc.
·         Draw lines between the stars to make different patterns with white chalk.
·         After doing this activity students will able to know more about different star patterns.
·         Now tell the students that these patterns of stars are called the constellations.

Development

Activity 1

·         Make the following table on the board.
Sr. no.
Bodies in space
Emitting light
Reflecting light
1
Sun
2
Moon
3
Earth
4
Comet
5
Asteroid
6
Meteor
·         Ask the students to copy and fill the table.
Sr. no.
Bodies in space
1
Sun
Emitting light
2
Moon
Reflecting light
3
Earth
Reflecting light
4
Comet
Emitting light
5
Asteroid
Reflecting light
6
Meteor
Emitting light

Activity 2

·         Ask the student’s weather they have seen an X ray, surely more of the students will answer is yes.
·         Ask one of the students to bring an old X ray sheet and a cello tape tomorrow.
·         On the next day help the students in mapping a safety viewer to view the sun as:
v  Cut two circles of about cm diameter from the sheet.
v  Round a cardboard to make a cylinder of the same diameter with the help of cello tape.
v  Paste both the X ray circular sheet placed one above the other at one end of the cardboard cylinder and fix it with the cello tape.
v  Now view the sun through this safety viewer. You can observe the sun easily.
v  Call some students one by one to view the sun through it.
v  All the students will engage the activity.
v  At the end tell the students that it is very dangerous to view the sun directly with naked eyes.
v  Now tell them some other safety methods to view the sun safely.

Sum up / Conclusion

·         There is large number of constellations in the sky.

Assessment

Q1. Name some two constellations?
       (Expected response: Hercules, Leo, Liza, Gemini, Orion, cancer and Pegasus.
 Q2. How many constellations is their overall?
       (Expected response: There is a large number of constellations in the sky)
   Q3. At which part of the day we able to see the stars/constellations?
       (Expected response: at night)

Follow up

·         Collect some constellations pattern from internet or from library and paste their images in your notebook.

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