Digital Inquiry - Why Does the Sun Appear to Move Across the Sky? - NICHOLAS GLAESER | Library

6

Watch the video.  Use the information from the video to fill in the blanks.  Drag and drop each term in the correct blank.

The video first shows the Sun’s path in Boston on June 21.  The Sun rises from the northeast at 5:12 AM.  It hits its highest point at ____________.
The Sun sets in the northwest at ____________.  This summer day
experienced about _____________of daylight.

The video then shows the Sun’s path on December 21.
The sun rises at ____________ from the southeast.  The Sun hits its highest point at _________.  The Sun sets in the southwest at 4:06 PM.  The total amount of daylight was
about ____________ .

Other Answer Choices:

9 hours

noon

8:18 PM

15 hours

1:00 PM

7:14 AM

TEXT: Spin me Around!

“The Sun comes up.”
“The Sun rises in the sky.”

Wrong! That’s not how the Sun works.  We know that people say the Sun moves or rises.  It looks like it does, but why is that wrong?

The Sun is not moving across our sky; Earth is rotating (spinning) on its axis, an imaginary line that goes through the center of Earth.

The Sun appears in the sky when the side of the Earth you are on faces the Sun.  It’s daytime. When the rotating Earth takes you away from facing the Sun, it’s night.

The Sun appears to move across the sky because Earth is rotating on its axis.  Earth rotates counterclockwise, so the Sun appears to move across the sky from west to east.

As Earth continues to rotate, the Sun appears to move across the sky.  The Sun also appears to rise in the east and set in the west because of how the Earth rotates.

1

Why do we experience sunrise and sunset?

1

Which statement best supports the answer to question 2?

6

Explore the diagram above.  Drag and drop each label in the correct position.

Other Answer Choices:

Equator

South Pole

Axis

North Pole

Day in Pacific

Night in Florida

6

Use what you learned to support a claim with evidence and reasoning.

Claim: The Sun appears to move across the sky due to Earth’s rotation.

Evidence:  In Boston, we saw the Sun’s _____________ move in an arc shape across the sky from _________ to _________ .  In both summer and winter, sunrise occurred in the morning and sunset occurred in the evening.  The Sun reached its ____________ point midday.

Reasoning:  As Earth ____________ counterclockwise, the Sun ____________ to move across the sky.