Science 5th grade | UNIT 6: Earth's movement 6.3 The Earth rotates on its axis
The globe is a model of the Earth. It is shaped like a ball and it has a stick passing through it from the North Pole to the South Pole. This stick represents the Earth's axis. In space, the Earth is not upright. It is tilted on its axis like the globe.
The Earth spins all the time on its axis, from west to east. We call this movement rotation. The Earth completes one rotation on its axis every 24 hours.
Find your country on the globe. Put a piece of tape on your country. Now spin the globe on its axis and watch your country go round and round. This movement happens all the time, but we do not notice it.
Imagine that you are in a vehicle that is moving very fast. You might be travelling at 120 km/h, which seems fast, but the Earth is rotating on its axis at least ten times faster than this!
Activity 6.3: (Use a model to show day and night)
You will need: a globe, a sticker, a torch
The torch represents the Sun and the globe represents the Earth. Shine the torch on the globe. This represents the Sun shining on the Earth. Now spin the globe from west to east in an anticlockwise direction.
Observe which part of the 'Earth' is lit up. Can the whole ‘Earth’ be lit up at one time?
Now place a sticker on the 'Earth'. Continue to shine the torch on the 'Earth'.
Spin the 'Earth' and watch the sticker.
Is the sticker lit up by the torch all the time? As the 'Earth’spins, say 'day' when the light shines on the sticker and ‘night when no light shines on the sticker.
Questions
1- Copy and complete this sentence. The Earth's ...................... on its axis causes everywhere on the Earth's surface to experience ............................... and .......................over a period of 24 hours.
2- Copy the diagram and shade the half of the Earth having night black and the half having day yellow.
3- You are going to explain the idea of night and day to a younger learner. Plan how you could explain this using things that you could find at home.
Challenge
Uwe lives in Germany. Brad lives in Canada. If Uwe wants to contact Brad he should phone when it is evening in Germany. Why shouldn't he phone Brad when it is morning in Germany?