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YEAR 3 - EARTH'S ROTATION
Year 3 PALMS Book
The entire Year 3 PALMS book can be downloaded by clicking here (please note the loading time may be long).
PALMS 3 STEM Project
The PALMS 3 STEM Project explores the concepts of day and night. Students work through introductory activities on shadow tracking, keeping Moon diaries, cultural stories and scale models, before taking this knowledge into the design of a garden. This project comes with comprehensive teacher's notes, offering suggestions to help deal with the many misconceptions in this area of Science, in the Teacher's Guide (click here to download). Students are provided guidance and support in the Student Booklet (click here to download). We recommend introducing STEM and what STEM skills look like using our thought provoking activities (click here to download).
Year 3 PALMS Package - by activity
Activities can be accessed individually below.
An introduction to the Year 3 package and its links to the Australian Curriculum.
A list of equipment needed for each activity within the PALMS 3 package. To assist you with planning and preparations.
An introductory activity to raise student awareness about the damage that can be done my staring directly at the Sun.
An activity to introduce students to the effects of the Sun. Students can create their own badges in this activity.
Students explore the concept of a fair test and examine the impact of sunlight on a range of paper types in this fun activity.
To find out more about the Sun and fair testing activities for students click here.
Students can update their parents about their latest findings in Science and conduct their very own investigation at home using this PALMS Parent Power activity.
Examine the visible light spectrum with some easy to access and very spectacular equipment.
Students design their own ways to examine if the Sun is in fact a source of light.
Students explore UV light in an activity to support your school's 'no hat, no play' policy.
Students examine what happened to the Christmas baubles?
Students consolidate their learning with this literacy activity.
Students examine concepts of subjective statments versus measured temperatures.
Students examine techniques to improve the accuracy of their measurements.
Students practice reading thermometers in this Mathematics based activity.
Students make predictions about temperatures across the day and test these predictions.
Students record their own experiences with heat from the Sun.
Students dry wet paper towel in the Sun and the shade to compare the time it takes.
Students begin to consider the shape of the Earth and perspective with this historically based activity.
Through this demonstration students can see evidence that the earth is spinning.
Students consider the many words in their vocabulary associated to time.
During this demonstration students see how day and night occur.
To find out more about teaching night and day to students click here.
During this activity students consider a Dreamtime story regarding time.
Through discussion, students consider the traits attributed to day and night.
Through discussion, students consider whether some of the vocabulary we use when talking about time is misleading.
In this quirky whole class activity students explore early concepts of time zones.
Students quite literally get 'hands on' with time, exploring a method used by early Egyptian people.
In this Mathematics activity students calculate fractions of minutes, hours and days.
Students work together to create a class 'book of hours'.
Students use graph paper to assist in their understanding of the relative sizes of units of time.
Students take their investigation of time zones one step further.
This will really get you thinking!
Students will really enjoy producing and changing shadows.
To find out more about investigating shadows with students click here.
In this extension activity students graph the progression of shadows.
This activity ties together Science, Art and History.
Learn more about making your own sundials - click here.
Students create their own nodal sundials.
Students create their own t bar sundials and examine their use in history.
Those students that are up for a challenge can create their own gnomon sundial to complete their collection.
This PALMS Parent Power activity allows students to share their learnings at home and to explore time with their family.
This activity asks students to consider if perspective impacts how something is seen.
This activity allows students to consider the scale of the Sun, Moon and Earth while creating a model.
Students model rotation and orbit.
This poster activity asks students to consider historical context and the importance of the Sun, Earth or Moon.