Revolve and Rotate

I have created some interactive notebook pages which you can use to complete this activity with your students.

Here is another idea from my science notebook. Inside our notebooks we put models of the earth revolving around the sun and rotating on its axis. Just like reflection and refraction, students can easily mix up rotate and revolve.

 

The students glued an earth to the edge of a strip of paper. They used a brad to connect the strip of paper, the sun, and the notebook page. Then we wrote the definition for revolve, orbit and the length of 1 revolution beside the model. 

 This next year, I would like to add the moon to this model.

For the bottom part, the students needed to see a visual of the day/night cycle. We turned the earth on its axis and glue it down. Then drew the line where day/night meet. 

 

This page is meant to model rotation. Each student received a view of the earth from the top. We attached a brad through the north pole and marked which way the earth spins. We added the definitions of rotate, axis and axial tilt. There is also a line showing where day/night meet.

I had this all set up before class so the students could see what we were aiming for. But I also did another as we went through it together.

This corresponds with Science TEKS 5.8C and it is partly a review from early grades.

Next year a I need to add a page that shows how the sun moves across the sky during the day. If anyone has a page in a science notebook they think could work, let me know.