Grade Level: 6,7,8
Goals:
*The students will be introduced to the idea of time zones and how they affect their everyday life
*The students will learn how the organization of the solar system affects time zones
Materials:
*Globe
Content Areas:
*Science
*Math
Concepts:
*Time Zones
*Solar system
Procedure:
1. Teacher will begin by asking students what they know about the solar system. Such things as planets, their orbit and the solar system may be discussed.
2. The teacher will then ask for two volunteers. One will represent the sun and one will represent the earth.
3. The two students will be asked to act out the orbit of the earth around the sun by having one student move around the other.
4. The teacher will then ask the class what this rotation represents (i.e.: one year). The students will then discuss how the orbit around the sun represents the seasons of the year and the temperatures because the shape of the earth's orbit is an ellipse and in one season (the summer) is closer to the sun than in the other (winter). The entire journey around the sun takes exactly one year.
5. Then the students will be asked why there is both daylight and darkness in one day. Since this is due to the rotation of the earth around the sun, the two students in front of the room can demonstrate this action. The student representing the earth will rotate in a circle as he/she rotates around the sun. The class will be able to see how both day and night are caused as well as how the different seasons are created.
6. The teacher will then explain how time zones are created and why. Since only parts of the Earth receive sunlight at a given time, the Earth is divided into 24 standard time zones, one zone for each hour in the day.
7. The teacher will then show the students a map that is divided into the 24 time zones. It will be explained that when you move into different time zones, the time changes ahead or back depending on the direction that is traveled.
8. The teacher will also talk about the International Date line. It is located on approximately 180 longitude. It does not follow this line of longitude exactly because it was decided that this line should not divide countries. The teacher will explain that this line separates one day from the next.
9. The teacher will then give the students a guide sheet to help them better understand the concept of time zones.
10. After the students finish the guide sheet, discuss the sheet and any questions the students might have.
Evaluation: Students will be evaluated based on their performance on the guide sheet. It is up to the individual teacher as to how they want to "grade" it.
Approximate Time: 2 hours
Resources:
~Fitzpatrick, Gary. International time tables. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1990. ~Kalusky, Rebecca. Success with Maps (teacher's edition). New York: Scholastic Inc., 1985.
~Steck-Vaughn Company. Maps, Globes, Graphs (teacher's edition), 1989.
Internet sites:
~http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/tzones.html. ~http://planets.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/TSE1998/T98TimeZone.html
Extensions:
-Students could make a model of the solar system out of candy and mount the different pieces of candy to a piece of Styrofoam with pins. -The students could also make their own map of the time zones.