The Sun-Earth System

Sunrise to Sunset
Two friends were talking about where the Sun is in the sky between sunrise and sunset. They each drew a picture to explain their ideas. Here is what they drew and said:

Avi: I think the Sun rises on one side

and sets on the other.

Jessica: I think the Sun rises upward

in the morning, then sets downward
toward night. It looks like it goes up
and down like this.

Whom do you agree with the most? __________________ Explain why you agree.
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________

Uncovering Student Ideas in Astronomy

Copyright 2012 NSTA. All rights reserved. For more information, go to www.nsta.org/permissions.

43

The Sun-Earth System

Sunrise to Sunset
Teacher Notes

Purpose

The purpose of this assessment probe is to elicit

students ideas about the apparent movement
of the Sun. The probe is designed to reveal
where students think the Sun rises and sets,
and how it moves during the day.

Related Concepts

Objects in the sky

Seasons: cause, length of day
Solar system objects: spin
Sun: altitude at noon, path in the sky

Explanation

Avi has the best answer. The Suns apparent

motion across the sky during the course of a
day is arclike as shown in Avis drawing. The
Sun rises along the eastern horizon, appears
to travel across the entire sky, and sets along
the western horizon. Viewed from the Northern Hemisphere, facing south, it seems like

44

the Sun is moving across the sky in a left-toright direction. At around noon (which is the
midpoint between sunrise and sunset) the Sun
appears to be at its highest point in the sky.
However, the Sun only appears to move in an
arc across the sky. It is the Earths rotation that
is responsible for this visual effect.

Administering the Probe

This probe is primarily designed for students

in the elementary and middle school grades.
For the youngest children you may want to
read the probe aloud and allow time for the
children to ask questions. For middle school
students you may want to add an additional
taskto draw how the Sun appears to move
through the sky during the day. [Safety note:
If you follow this probe with Sun observations throughout the day, make sure students do not look directly at the Sun.]

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e Te a c h e r s A s s o c i a t i o n
Copyright 2012 NSTA. All rights reserved. For more information, go to www.nsta.org/permissions.

The Sun-Earth System

Related Ideas in Benchmarks

for Science Literacy
(AAAS 2009)
K2 The Universe
The Sun, Moon, and stars all appear to
move slowly across the sky.
35 The Earth
The rotation of the Earth on its axis every
24 hours produces the night-and-day
cycle. To people on Earth, this turning
of the planet makes it seem as though the
Sun, Moon, planets, and stars are orbiting
the Earth once a day.

Related Ideas in National

Science Education Standards
(NRC 1996)
K4 Objects in the Sky
The Sun, Moon, stars, clouds, birds, and
airplanes all have properties, locations,
and movements that can be observed and
described.
K4 Changes in Earth and Sky
Objects in the sky have patterns of
movement.

Related Research

Plummer (2008) interviewed 20 students

in each of grades 1, 3, and 8. Although she
found a general trend toward higher levels
of understanding among the older students,
students at each grade level held misconceptions about how the Sun appeared to
move through the sky during the day and
how the Suns path across the sky changed
with the seasons. Many of the children at
all ages thought that the Sun was directly
overhead at noon every day, even though

the Sun was never overhead at noon at the

latitude where the children lived. Furthermore, there was no significant difference
between third-grade students and eighthgrade students understanding of the Suns
apparent motions.
Plummer and Krajcik (2010) found that
children as young as first grade knew
that the Sun gets higher in the sky during
the day and lower in the sky during the
evening, although most were not able to
accurately describe the Suns path. Some
of the students envisioned the Sun going
up and then down on the same side of
the sky. Other children thought the Sun
stopped moving in the sky during the
day. However, after a planetarium program about the Suns path, 86% of firstand second-grade students were able to
describe the Suns path as rising on one
side of the sky, following a continuous
arc, and setting on the other side of the
sky.
Mant and Summers (1993) interviewed
primary school teachers in England.
Although most could explain the day-night
cycle in scientific terms, few could relate
their explanations to observations of how
the Sun appears in the sky. Some appeared
to work backward from their explanation
to describe what must be happening in the
sky. That suggests it is important to have
students first observe how the Sun changes
its position during the daytime, before
explaining why that happens from the
viewpoint of a spinning Earth.

Suggestions for Instruction and

Assessment

This probe can be combined with Darkness at Night in Uncovering Student Ideas
in Science, Vol. 2: 25 More Formative Assessment Probes (Keeley, Eberle, and Tugel
2007).

Indicates a strong match between the ideas elicited by the probe and a national standards learning goal.
Uncovering Student Ideas in Astronomy
Copyright 2012 NSTA. All rights reserved. For more information, go to www.nsta.org/permissions.

45

The Sun-Earth System

For students who believe that the Sun rises

vertically above the horizon in the morning and then comes back down toward
evening, be aware that these students
might be bound by the way we use the
words sunup and sundown or sunrise and
sunset, which implies that the Sun literally
goes up and down in the sky. It is particularly important that these students have
an opportunity to observe the position of
the Sun throughout the day. [Safety note:
Students should never look directly at
the Sun.] The best way to do that is to
have them mark the position of a fixed
object, like a flagpole. It is important to
explicitly point out that the shadow marks
the direction opposite the Sun. When the
Sun is highest in the sky, the shadow will
be the shortest.
Although it is too early to teach kindergarteners or first graders the explanation for
day and night and expect them to explain
it clearly, they can learn that the Sun is out
during the day but not at night and that
it is the Sun that in fact determines when
day starts and ends. Nighttime is simply
the absence of sunlight. It is also important for students in kindergarten or first or
second grade to observe that the position
of the Sun changes during the day, moving
in a smooth continuous arc from one side
of the sky to the other.
In upper elementary school, when students
study the Earth as a ball in space, you can
have the students simulate the spinning
Earth with their heads by slowly turning

46

to see the sunrise as they just start to see

the light, watch the Sun go from one side
of their field of view as they slowly turn,
then see sunset as the Sun disappears on
the other side of their view.
For older students, the University of Oregons Solar Radiation Monitoring Laboratory has a website where students can create
Sun path charts from their location: http://
solardat.uoregon.edu/SunChartProgram.
html

References
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). 2009. Benchmarks for science literacy online. www.project2061.org/publications/
bsl/online
Keeley, P., F. Eberle, and J. Tugel, 2007. Uncovering
student ideas in science, vol. 2: 25 more formative
assessment probes. Arlington, VA: NSTA Press.
Mant, J., and M. Summers. 1993. Some primaryschool teachers understanding of the Earths
place in the universe. Research Papers in Education 8 (1): 101129.
National Research Council (NRC). 1996. National
science education standards. Washington, DC:
National Academies Press.
Plummer, J. 2008. Students development of
astronomy concepts across time. Astronomy
Education Review 7 (1): 139148. http://aer.aas.
org/resource/1/aerscz/v7/i1/p139_s1
Plummer, J., and J. Krajcik. 2010. Building a learning progression for celestial motion: Elementary levels from an Earth-based perspective.
Journal of Research in Science Teaching 47 (7):
768787.

N a t i o n a l S c i e n c e Te a c h e r s A s s o c i a t i o n
Copyright 2012 NSTA. All rights reserved. For more information, go to www.nsta.org/permissions.