In kindergarten, students explore how scientists use all of their senses to ask questions and develop hypotheses about the world around them. In this unit, students have been analyzing weather patterns and seasons as well as considering the role of the sun in heating the Earth. This page is an overview of lesson 8 in which students investigate different Earth materials often found in their school’s playground or schoolyard to observe temperature variation among different surface materials when light hits them.
Kindergarten students start to develop the practices that scientists use to gather data, make and test hypotheses, and share their findings. During this unit, students will ask questions and make observations as they explore weather patterns and investigate how the sun heats different Earth materials. This page is an extract from lesson 9 where students conduct an experiment to analyze how materials are warmed differently in the sunlight than they are in the shade.
In this unit, students investigate the science phenomena of seasonal patterns and water cycles. Once students have analyzed how seasonal patterns of sunrise and sunset can be observed and predicted, they focus on seasonal temperature and rainfall patterns. They investigate temperature patterns of a specific location throughout the year.
Standards citation: NGSS Lead States. 2013. Next Generation Science Standards: For States, By States. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. Neither WestEd nor the lead states and partners that developed the Next Generation Science Standards were involved in the production of this product, and do not endorse it.