Scientific Background Information Scientific Background Information Go back to lesson . Building a foundation for understanding of orbits of planets and other satellites begins with observation of objects in the sky and how they move. Clouds move with the wind, airplanes and birds create their own direction. The Sun, the Earth, the Moon, the stars and other plants have fixed laws that govern their movement.
Planetary orbits have a distinct elliptical shape.
In K-4, students begin by observing objects in the sky and how they move. It is the teacher's job to elicit thinking about the patterns of these movements so that students have a firm basis in the upper grades for understanidng orbits. By observing the day and night sky regularly, children in grades K-4 learn to identify sequences of changes and to look for patterns in these changes. As they observe changes, such as the movement of an object's shadow during the course of a day, and the positions of the Sun and the Moon, they will find patterns in these movements. They can draw the moon's shape for each evening on a calendar and then determine the pattern in the shapes over several weeks.