Lesson Plan of Shape of the Earth
General Science Grade IV
Students’ Learning Outcomes
After studying the students will be able to:
● Describe the shape of Earth
● Relate the earth’s spin motion with the occurrence of day and night.
Information for Teachers
Our Earth is not flat. It is round like Football. As a small piece of large sphere looks flat; similarly, the earth appears to us as flat because we can se only a small part at a time. During space exploration, scientist observed with their own eyes that the earth is round like a football.
More proof of the earth’s being sphere is provided by a ship approaching the sea shore. When the ship is far away, only the mast ( a tall flag pole) of the ship is initially seen. The lower part of the ship appears later when the ship gets closer to the shore. If the earth was flat all parts of the ship would appear at the same time.
Duration: 40 Minutes
Material / Resources
A football, some balls, and some small round shapes, a globe, a torch, charts of earth shape, etc.
Worm up Activity
Ask the children;
What do you think is the shape of the earth?
How do you know this?
Show them a football and ask them
If a small ant lived on this ball what would it think the shape of the ball is?
Development
Divide the class into groups.
1. Give each group a football and mark on its surface a small area with a ballpoint pen.
2. Students observe the marked area or feel it by moving their fingers over it.
Does it appear flat?
Assessment
Show the photograph of the earth taken from space and ask students to comment on the photograph.
What is the shape of earth?
Divide the class into groups of 5
And provide each group with a globe turn by turn.
1. Ask where we can make a round trip of the earth.
2. Starting from some point on the globe, trace the path along which we can com back to the same point after making a round trip of the world.
3. Children write the name of important cities which will come on the way of the round trip.
4. Would it be possible to take a round trip if the earth was flat
Follow up
Ask the students to make earth shape on their note books.
Ask the students to explain the earth shape round or flat.
