Why more shooting stars are seen before dawn
Pupils model the Earth spinning and travelling around the Sun, use it to explain day and night, and discover with a confetti model why the hours before dawn, when we face the way Earth is moving, bring more meteors.
- Describe how the Earth spins once a day and travels around the Sun once a year.
- Use the Earth's rotation to explain day and night and the apparent movement of the Sun across the sky.
- Use a model to explain why more meteors are seen after midnight than in the evening.
National Curriculum links
- Year 5, Earth and space: describe the movement of the Earth, and other planets, relative to the Sun in the solar system.
- Year 5, Earth and space: use the idea of the Earth's rotation to explain day and night and the apparent movement of the sun across the sky.
- Year 5, Earth and space: describe the Sun, Earth and Moon as approximately spherical bodies.
- Upper Key Stage 2, working scientifically: reporting and presenting findings, including explanations of causal relationships; identifying scientific evidence that has been used to support or refute ideas.
Key vocabulary
- orbit
- rotate
- axis
- meteor
- meteoroid
- atmosphere
- dawn
- dusk
- model
Resources
- A globe or large ball with a sticker on the UK, and a bright torch or lamp as the Sun.
- Chalk or masking tape to mark a large circle on the hall floor as Earth's orbit, with an arrow showing the direction of travel.
- A bucket of paper confetti or small scrunched paper balls, and two paper plates per group, one labelled FRONT and one BACK.
- Stopwatches.
- The worksheet, one per pupil.
Background for the teacher
The Earth spins on its axis once a day, so at any moment half of it faces the Sun (day) and half faces away (night). Seen from above the North Pole, it spins anticlockwise, which is why the Sun appears to rise in the east and set in the west. At the same time the Earth travels around the Sun once a year, at about 30 km every second.
Space near the Earth's path is scattered with tiny grains of rock and dust called meteoroids. When one hits the atmosphere, it heats the air in its path so much that the air glows, usually about 70 to 120 km up, and we see a meteor, or shooting star.
In the evening, your side of the Earth is the back of the moving planet, like the rear window of a car. After midnight the Earth's spin carries you round to the front, the side facing the direction the Earth is travelling, like the windscreen. A car's windscreen catches far more raindrops than its back window, and the front of the Earth sweeps up more meteoroids, which also hit faster and look brighter. That front-facing direction is highest in the sky around 6 a.m., so on an ordinary night you often see about twice as many meteors in the hours before dawn as in the evening. During showers the height of the shower's radiant matters too: the Perseids are best before dawn, while the Geminids are well placed from mid-evening.
Lesson plan
Starter 10 minutes
Ask: have you ever seen a shooting star? What do you think it is? Collect ideas, then explain that it is a grain of space dust burning up high in the air, not a star.
Use the globe and torch to show day and night: turn the globe slowly anticlockwise (seen from above the North Pole) and watch the UK sticker move from night into day. Find dawn, midday, dusk and midnight.
Main 35 minutes
Confetti model: in the hall, one pupil walks steadily forward holding the FRONT plate in front of their chest and the BACK plate behind their back. Classmates standing on the floor on both sides gently drop confetti from head height as the walker passes, for 30 seconds. Count the confetti on each plate. Repeat three times with different walkers, then once with the walker standing still.
Groups record results and spot the pattern: when the walker moves, the front plate catches more.
Orbit model: one pupil holds the lamp at the centre of the floor circle as the Sun. Another carries the globe slowly round the circle in the direction of the arrow while turning it. Stop and find where the UK sticker is facing the direction of travel: it is on the morning side, between midnight and midday.
Pupils complete the diagram on the worksheet.
Plenary 15 minutes
Pupils write a short explanation for a friend who wants to see shooting stars: when should they look, and why? Share two or three, checking for the ideas of spin, travel and the front of the Earth.
End with a reminder of how to watch safely: with an adult, wrapped up warmly, somewhere dark and away from roads and water.
Differentiation
Use labelled picture cards for dawn, midday, dusk and midnight on the diagram, and the sentence starter "The front of a moving car …".
Complete the results table and diagram, and write a two-sentence explanation.
Explain why a walker standing still catches about the same on both plates, and why meteors seen before dawn also look faster.
Safety and risk assessment
Check these points against your employer's risk assessment and your school's policies before the lesson.
| Hazard | How to control it |
|---|---|
| Falls when dropping confetti | Droppers stand on the floor and drop from head height; nobody stands on benches or chairs. |
| Collisions while walking the model | Mark a clear path, walk slowly and keep other pupils to the sides. |
| Slipping on confetti or paper balls | Sweep up between trials and at the end. |
| Bright lamp shone into eyes | Keep the lamp pointing at the globe. |
| Meteor watching at home | Watch only with an adult, in warm clothes, somewhere dark away from roads, water and cliff edges. |
Assessment questions with answers
- How long does the Earth take to spin round once?Answer: About 24 hours: one day.
- How long does the Earth take to travel once around the Sun?Answer: About 365¼ days: one year.
- Does the Sun really move across our sky during the day?Answer: No. It only seems to move because the Earth is spinning.
- Why is it day in the UK when it is night in New Zealand?Answer: The Earth spins, so only half of it faces the Sun at a time, and the UK and New Zealand are on almost opposite sides of the Earth.
- Why are more meteors seen in the hours before dawn than in the evening?Answer: Before dawn our side of the Earth faces the direction the Earth is travelling, so it runs into more space dust, just as a car's windscreen catches more raindrops than its back window.
Homework
Draw the Earth, the Sun and the direction the Earth is moving. Mark where you would stand to see the most shooting stars, and explain why in two sentences. If you can, with an adult on a clear night during a meteor shower, count the meteors you see in 15 minutes.
Answer guidance: The best position is on the side of the Earth facing the direction of travel, which is the morning side, between midnight and midday. Before dawn, that side sweeps into more meteoroids.
Use with these pages
- The Perseids meteor shower
- The Geminids meteor shower
- Sporadic meteor
- Radiant
- Meteoroid
- Our Solar System and where space rocks live
- Meteor showers and comets
These eight lessons are a free starter pack, written specially for this site. The full set of 25 lesson plans, with worksheets, end-of-unit tests and mark schemes, is in the Corvanelle book Teaching Meteorites. The lessons in the book are different lessons, so the starter pack and the book work together rather than repeating each other.