Lesson video

- Hi, everyone, my name is Miss Hummel, and I would usually be a teacher in a school in Feltham.

I'm really excited to be teaching you this unit.

Together, we'll be answering the question, what are solar and lunar eclipses? In this lesson, we will learn about the sun, the Earth, and the moon.

We will also learn and about satellites, including natural and artificial satellites.

We will discuss the lunar phases.

And finally, we will learn about solar and lunar eclipses.

Our lesson will follow this structure.

First, we will discuss what we know about the sun, the Earth, and the moon.

Then, we will discuss about what satellites are.

We will follow this by discussing what lunar phases are.

And finally, we will learn about solar and lunar eclipses.

In this lesson, you will need an exercise book or paper, a pencil or pen, a coloured pencil or pen, and a ruler.

If you haven't got those things, make sure to pause the video now, and go get them.

Here are our star words, which are the most important words of our lesson.

I'm going to say them and ask you to repeat them after me.

When I point at myself, it will be my turn.

And when I point at you, it will be your turn.

Solar.

Lunar.

Orbit.

Eclipse.

Satellite Celestial.

Now, solar is based on the word for sun, and lunar is based on the word for moon.

We'll begin by discussing what we need to know about the sun, the Earth, and the moon.

First, I would like to test your previous knowledge.

Please label the Earth, the sun, and the moon in this picture.

Pause the video now to complete that task.

You should have labelled the large orange object as the sun, the circular object that is blue and green should have been labelled as the Earth.

And the smaller object next to the Earth should have been labelled as the moon.

Celestial was one of our star words.

Celestial comes from old French, and it means heavenly or sky-blue.

Also, in Spanish, celeste is also a type of blue.

Now, celestial bodies.

I want you to repeat after me.

A celestial body is any natural object that is found in space.

A celestial body is any natural object that is found in space.

A celestial body is? Now, the sun, the Earth, and the moon are examples of celestial bodies.

Can you think of any other examples that you might see in this picture? Many celestial bodies orbit other celestial bodies.

To orbit means when something moves around an other object in a curved, often a circular path.

Let's come up with an action for the definition of orbit.

Now, to orbit, we can maybe do this as orbit.

So to orbit means when something moves around another object in a curved path.

The Earth orbits the sun and the moon orbits the Earth.

So let's imagine that this ball is the sun.

Now, if this other ball is the Earth, which I just realised is blending into my background.

But if this other ball is the Earth, then the Earth is going to orbit around the sun.

Now, if this continues to be the Earth, and this one over here is the moon, the moon is also orbiting the Earth.

So the moon is going around the Earth, just like that.

Now, can you imagine the moon going around the Earth while the Earth, I don't have enough hands for this, while the Earth continues to go around the sun? Now, I can't move it, I haven't got enough hands, but maybe if you've got a friend or someone at home, maybe you could demonstrate it as well.

I would now like you to pause the video to complete this sentence.

The mm orbits the Earth, and the mm orbits the sun.

You can resume once you're finished completing that sentence.

You should have said that the moon orbits the Earth, and the Earth orbits the sun.

Next, we're going to discuss what satellites are.

Any object that orbits another object in space is known as a satellite.

Satellites that existed without humans putting them there are known as natural satellites.

The moon is an example of a natural salad, not salad, a natural satellite, because it orbits around the Earth.

Now, based on this definition, can you think of something else that we've discussed before, which based on this definition can also be considered a satellite? You may have been thinking about the Earth, which orbits around the sun.

So the Earth is considered a satellite.

So is the moon.

So are any other planets that orbit around something, or in our case, the sun.

Now, satellites that were put into space by humans are known as artificial satellites.

When something's artificial, it's not real.

For example, if you've got, let's say some juice that says artificial flavourings, that means the flavour did not come from, let's say a real orange or a real apple.

It came from basically a fake version of the flavour.

So the International Space Station and other satellites that orbit around the Earth for our phone signal, so the fact that in our phone, we've got signal, that comes from a satellite that humans put in space.

Because they didn't exist naturally, they're called artificial satellites.

Now, just a few fun facts on the ISS.

Did you know that the ISS circles the entire planet once every 90 minutes? So basically, the same length as a football game.

And apparently, it also cost over $120 billion to build.

You're now going to pause the video to answer these questions.

What is a satellite? Then, you're going to write your answer with the correct option.

So you're going to say the moon is an example of a natural or an artificial satellite, you're going to write which one's correct.

And the International Space Station is an example of a natural or an artificial satellite.

You can resume the video once you're finished.

Now, get your green pen or pencil to mark your work.

We should have said that a satellite is an object that orbits another object in space.

You should have also said for number two that the moon is an example of a natural satellite, and that the International space station is an example of an artificial satellite.

Make sure you mark those questions, and well done if you got them all correct.

Next, we're going to look at the lunar phases.

Now, the moon changes its visible shape, that's what we can see from Earth, with four distinct phases, depending on the moon's position as it orbits around the Earth, and as the Earth's position as it orbits around the sun.

Now, when we can see part of the moon, it's actually because we can see the part that the sun is shining on.

Now, have a think.

When was the last time that you saw the moon? Because I saw it last night, and it was looking like a very thin, little sliver.

That's what I could actually see.

Hmm, I wonder what the last time that you saw the moon was, and I wonder what it looked like then.

Now, the moon takes approximately 28 days, which is around a month, to orbit once around the Earth.

So this movement that it was doing here, it does that one time every month.

Do you know how long it takes the Earth though, to orbit the sun? Now, you may have known that it was 365 days, which is a year, but how many times do you think the moon then, orbits the Earth while the Earth is orbiting the sun? If the Earth takes about a year, and the moon orbits the Earth in about a month, then that should be about 12 times, which is how many months there are in one year.

The orbit of the moon is tilted.

So the sun is able to cast its light on the moon.

This means that if the Earth was straight, the moon would be orbiting, not parallel to the Equator, but at an angle.

So if this was my Earth, which again, looks kind of odd because of my screen.

Let's put it in front of my face, there you go.

So if this was the Earth, this isn't rotating directly kind of parallel to the centre of the Earth.

It's rotating kind of at an angle like this.

So not around, kind of nice and parallel to the centre, but more like at an angle like this.

Okay.

As the moon orbits the Earth, the shape of the light that is cast onto the moon changes.

And we call those the phases of the moon or the lunar phases, remember that lunar is a word that relates to the moon.

On our screen, we've got a few examples of what the moon might look like on different nights.

We've got a diagram on the board, so let's try and understand it a little bit better.

When the moon is facing the Earth and the sun from the same direction, so the moon that we can see on the left-hand of our screen, it's called a full moon as you can see.

That's when we can see the whole of the moon.

But when the moon is in between the Earth and the sun, we call it a new moon because although the sun is still shining on the moon, we can't see the sun shining because it's in between us.

Now, in between the new moon and a full moon, we call it a first quarter, which is when we can see half of the moon.

We can see the right half if we're in the northern part of the world.

Then it goes to full moon.

Then, from full moon to new moon, there is a section called third quarter.

And again, we can see half of the moon here.

And if we're in the north part of the world, we can see the left half of the moon.

Now, I told you what it would look like if we were on the northern part of the world, which the UK is the northern part of the world.

But what do you think the moon would look like if you were in the southern part of the world? Would it be the same as the northern part of the world? We've now got a bit of a difficult activity.

It's going to require you to think quite a bit.

I would like you to pause the video to complete it.

Use the diagram we just saw to write down what the moon looks like from the north part of the Earth at each of the following parts in its cycle.

So you should colour in the parts that we can't see, the parts that are dark.

Then you can leave the parts that you can see.

If you don't have this diagram in front of you, you can draw it using a ruler and a pencil or a pen.

You can resume once you're finished answering the question.

These are the answers to our task.

So from the northern part of the world, we can see the right half of the moon in the first quarter.

The whole moon in the full moon.

The left half of the moon on the third quarter.

And none of the moon when it's a new moon.

Now, in between the quarters, you can sometimes see the moon in small slivers, like how I could see it last night.

Finally, we're going to learn about solar and lunar eclipses.

Now, an eclipse takes place when an object blocks light from hitting another object.

On Earth, we experience two types of eclipse, a solar eclipse and a lunar eclipse.

During the solar eclipse, the sun's light is blocked by the moon.

So the moon gets in between the light of the sun and the Earth.

And it makes it dark for people on Earth for a short period of time.

That's because the moon casts a shadow on the Earth.

There's usually between two and five solar eclipses each year and they're only visible from limited areas.

Have you seen any solar eclipses in your life? During a lunar eclipse, the sun's light is blocked up by the Earth, which makes a full moon become dark for a short time.

That's because the Earth is casting a shadow on the moon.

We can only see a lunar eclipse when the moon would have been in a full moon.

This is because it goes from seeing the whole moon, kind of a full moon, to it suddenly becoming dark, because the Earth is casting a shadow on it.

Just like you can cast a shadow on different objects.

If the sun is shining in an afternoon, you can see a shadow behind you, and you might cover something with your shadow.

Now, there are at least two lunar eclipses, and as many as five lunar eclipses every year.

I would now like you to pause the video to complete this task.

You should fill in the gaps below.

Solar eclipse happens when the mm comes in between the sun and the mm.

This casts a shadow over the mm.

A lunar eclipse happens when the mm comes in between the sun and the mm.

This casts a shadow over the mm.

You can resume once you're finished.

To end our lesson, I would like you to pause the video and think about this question.

If we were to experience a solar eclipse, why would we have to be very careful about staring at it directly? If you've ever experienced a solar eclipse, you will know that usually people wear special glasses that are going to protect their eyes, because when we look directly at the sun, it can hurt our eyes as the light is so strong.

We have now finished our lesson, and it is time for you to complete your exit quiz.

You need to exit the video and complete the quiz to test your knowledge and understanding of this lesson.

I hope you enjoyed the lesson, bye.