Now that you know where it's too hot to walk barefoot, you can also figure out when to sit if you want cool off on a hot day.
We know that sunshine warms things up.
So if we want to cool off, we look for a shady spot. If we want to warm up, we find a place in the sun.
Next time you're outside on a sunny day, compare the temperature in the sun with the temperature in the shade. Do you feel a difference?
Below are ideas for extending this topic beyond the activity & exploration you just completed.
Where Is It Warmer?: Take a walk outside on a sunny day and challenge students to find the warmest and coldest spots they can. Encourage them to feel different kinds of surfaces—blacktop, brick, rocks, metal, soil, sand—in sun and in shade. Remind them that the sun is always moving, so the middle of a shadow will be cooler than its outer edges.
Help Keya get to the ice cream truck without burning her feet. You will need to print out a map handout for each student.
Grade K
Weather & Seasons
Sunlight, Heat, & Earth's Surface
K-PS3-1, K-PS3-2
Switch to non-narrated version
In this Read-Along lesson, Keya needs to find a way to get from the swimming pool to the ice cream truck without burning her bare feet on the hot pavement. This lesson includes a short exercise where students practice mapping a cool path across the hot pavement, and then act it out. You can extend the lesson with the optional activity, Where Is It Hot? Where Is It Not?, where students examine a photo and look for sunny hot spots and shady cool spots.
Preview optional activityThis activity does not require supplies.
To prepare for the Read-Along lesson, print out a copy of "Find a cool path for Keya" for each student.
The optional activity at the end of the Read-Along lesson requires no additional supplies.
Grade K
Weather & Seasons
Sunlight, Heat, & Earth's Surface
K-PS3-1, K-PS3-2
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