Need to be able to go outside and take temperatures of a variety of earth surfaces such as dark pavement or blacktop, concrete, bare ground, grass, shaded area, water or snow. Be sure to do experiment on a sunny and calm day so that clouds and winds do not impact temperature readings of surfaces. Safety Precautions Be careful if you take temperature readings in areas near traffic. Have students give proof or examples of what they believe. Discuss ways to conduct an experiment or test to see if the temperature of the earth is influenced by the sun.
Activity Give each student or pair a thermometer and the age-appropriate handout.
Go over where the students may go to take the temperature of different surfaces. Remind them to let a thermometer sit on a surface for three or four minutes before they take a reading and to let a thermometer get back down to air temperature before taking the reading of another surface. Briefly talk about whether the conditions might change our experiment and findings. Help students see that in order to replicate or try their experiment again, they need to know just where the surfaces were that they tested the first time. So, we need to try and describe where we took a thermometer reading in the grass, shade, etc.