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Sundial designers & time zones detectives

Science Year 5
This unit is part of Year 5 Science Space Presenters

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Objectives

Can you be a designer and a detective all in one session? You need to make a working sundial and interview people in different time zones around the world.

Science Objectives
i) use the idea of the Earth’s rotation to explain day and night and the apparent movement of the sun across the sky.

Working Scientifically

  1. Plan different types of scientific enquiries to answer questions, including recognising and controlling variables where necessary.
  2. Report and present findings from enquiries, including conclusions, causal relationships and explanations of and degree of trust in results, in oral and written forms.
  3. Identify scientific evidence that has been used to support or refute ideas or arguments.

Lesson Planning

Teaching

  • Track the Earth’s movement by making and observing a sundial.
  • Explore the Earth’s movement through simulation and time zones.
  • Solve problems using scientific evidence.

Activities

  1. Create a sundial calibrated to key school times.
  2. Explore time zones and relate this to the movement of the Earth.
  3. Use scientific logic and knowledge to solve time problems.

Investigation - exploring/analysing secondary sources
Create a sundial and explore time zones.

Vocabulary
Earth, Sun, rotate/rotation, spin, axis, night and day, shadow clocks, sundials, astronomical clocks opinion/fact, support/refute, time-zone, Greenwich Meantime, gnomon

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