Lesson 1
What are some of the objects we can see from Earth?
Home > Private: *ARCHIVE Year 3 Science – Focus Group > Unit 3 – Earth and Space Sciences > Lesson 1 – What are some of the objects we can see from Earth?
Lesson Plan
Preparation
- Colour photographs in reference books or charts of the solar system and the various space bodies would be useful to display while going through this lesson.
Curriculum links
- Australian Curriculum: ACSSU048, ACSIS054, ACSIS060
- NSW Curriculum: ST2-10ES-S, ST2-1WS-S
- VIC Curriculum: VCSSU061, VCSIS066, VCSIS067, VCSIS072
- WA Curriculum: ACSSU048, ACSIS054, ACSIS060
Teaching strategies
Introduction
- Display the digital lesson on your smartboard to introduce the concept of days, nights, years and seasons.
Development
- Provide students with printable versions of the student summary and worksheet. Have students complete the worksheet.
Differentiation
- As an extension activity, students can pick one of the objects from the student text page to research and create a poster about.
Conclusion
- Students can share their research as a whole class or in groups or pairs.
Assessment
Worksheet answers
1. (a) Possible answer: clouds/aircraft/rainbows/birds (b) Possible answers: sun/moon/stars/planets/comets/asteroids/meteors
2. (a) sun (b) comets (c) meteors (d) moon (e) planets (f) dwarf planets (g) asteroids (h) Ceres
3. A moon orbits a planet and a planet doesn’t orbit a moon. OR A moon is always smaller than the planet it orbits.
4. (a) Venus is hotter than Neptune. (b) All stars are not the same size. (c) The moon is smaller than Earth.
Investigation sheet answers
1. Teacher check
2. (a) Jupiter (b) Mercury (c) Venus (d) Neptune (e) Saturn (f) Mars
Student Pages










we can see from Earth?
we can see from Earth?








Can you guess what these words have in common?
clouds
stars
the sun
the moon
aircraft
rainbows
birds



They are some of the objects we can see from Earth.
Some, like the clouds, are closer to us in the atmosphere.
Others, like the stars, are far away in outer space.

Science – Unit 3 –Lesson 1 – image – clouds




The sun is the centre of the solar system and is actually a star.
It is made up of extremely hot burning gases.
It gives Earth heat and light.

The twinkling stars we see are far beyond our solar system.
They are not all the same as our sun - they can be bigger, smaller, hotter or cooler.

Plutoids and dwarf planets orbit the sun like the planets.
Like planets, they have enough gravity (force) to pull themselves into a round shape.
But they don’t have enough gravity to control other space bodies around them.
Most of the planets have one or more moons.
A moon is a space body that orbits a planet as it orbits the sun.



Science – Unit 2 – Lesson 1 – image – earth's moon


Comets are chunks of dirty ice, dust and gas.
When a comet gets too close to the sun, the ice starts to melt.
This pushes out from the comet with other material to form a tail.





Asteroids are chunks of rock which orbit the sun, mainly in a belt between Mars and Jupiter.
They can be as small as a grain of sand or as large as a small planet.




Sometimes we call them falling stars or shooting stars, but they are not really stars.
Meteors are pieces of rocky or metal material which come into the Earth’s atmosphere and burn up.
They look like bright streaks of light.
Downloads

Student Summary
Summary of student page information

Worksheet
Activities for students to complete

Investigation Worksheet
An experiment to consolidate learnings