If You are Absent During the Week of Sept. 28 here are the basics of what you are missing. By J. Byard

Sept At school, we built scale models of our solar system in order to have a better understanding of the positions of our sun and planets. We made a human model outside in the field to represent the picture on the next slide. Please familiarize yourself with the picture.

From: solar-system.jpg

On day two, we made toilet paper models of the solar system. You can make yours at home and bring it to me or me a photo of your completed model. Materials: 1 roll of toilet paper Markers (be careful, most markers bleed through the tp quickly, so place paper underneath tp when drawing/writing. Interplanetary distances chart (below) Directions: Draw the sun on the first sheet of TP. Then use your chart to count TP sheets to label the other planets and Pluto. PlanetDistance from Sun (in astronomical units) Scaled distance in TP Sheets Mercury0.391 Venus Earth Mars1.524 Jupiter Saturn Uranus Pluto

Please answer the following questions regarding your activities so far. You may bring your answers with you when you return or you may your responses to me. 1.What is the shape of the orbits the planets make around the sun? 2.How has the picture model of the solar system helped you to better understand what our solar system is really like? 3.How has the TP model of the solar system helped you to better understand what our solar system is really like? 4.Which model of the solar system do you think is better for helping students learn about the relative position of our sun and planets? Please explain your thoughts. Please view the video on the next slide. This will give you more info about the position and motion of celestial bodies in our solar system.

Please click to begin video. You can pause/unpause by clicking the video. If you click in the area outside the video, the slide show will advance.

Why do we have day and night? What is a year? Why do we have seasons? How does the moon change “shapes?” Day and night are caused by Earth's spinning motion. The "day" side of Earth faces the sun, and the "night" side faces away from the sun. As Earth spins, part of it moves from the night side to the day side. People see the sun rise in the east. At the same time, part of it moves from the day side to the night side. People see the sun set in the west.

Each day begins at midnight. In most countries, the day is divided into two parts of 12 hours each. The hours from midnight to noon are the a.m. hours. The hours from noon to midnight are the p.m. hours. The letters a.m. stand for ante meridian, which means before noon. The letters p.m. stand for post meridian, which means after noon. Night is really a part of the whole day. Image to right: Earth makes one complete turn each day. When it is morning for you, your part of the world is turning out of the darkness into the light. When it is evening where you live, your part of the world is turning from the light and moving into darkness. Then it will be night. Credit: World Book illustration by James Conahan

In addition to spinning around once a day, Earth travels around the sun once a year. This journey gives us the seasons. The lengths of days and nights are different in each season. This difference is caused by the tilt of Earth's axis. Earth's axis is an imaginary line that connects the North and South poles. When the North Pole tilts toward the sun, the northern part of Earth has summer, with long days and short nights. After six months, Earth has moved to the other side of the sun. The North Pole now tilts away from the sun, and the northern part of Earth has short days and long nights. How to cite this article: To cite this article, World Book recommends the following format: "Day and night." The World Book Student Discovery Encyclopedia. Chicago: World Book, Inc., 2005.

For information on the moon and particularly why it appears to change shape, please visit and read the following web page: Based on what you’ve read, please answer the following. Again, you may bring your answers when you return to school or them to me. Thanks. 1.Why do we have day and night? 2.What is a year? 3.Why do we have seasons? 4.Why does the moon appear as though it changes “shapes?”