An inquiry based natural science and technology assignment

NATURAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION
Name: ____________________
Student Number: ____________________
Code: NST301
Topic: Space— Planet Earth and Beyond
Table of Contents
Concept Map    3
Introduction    3
Integrating Concepts of Natural Science and Technology into the Chosen Topic    3
Activities to Demonstrate Natural Science and Technology Concepts to Students    4
Activity 1:    4
Teacher’s and Learner’s Task:    4
Assessment:    5
Activity 2:    5
Teacher’s and Learner’s Task:    5
Activity 3:    6
Teacher’s and Learner’s Task:    6
Activity 4:    6
Teacher’s and Learner’s Task    6
Activity 5:    6
Teacher’s and Learner’s Task:    7
Conclusion    7
References    8
(
SPACE
Earth from Space
Earth is one of those planets revolving around the sun, in our solar system. It is the third nearest planet to the sun.
Name of the

Planets
There are eight planets in the solar system. They include Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune.
Space
Travel
Earth
launches many space satellites, which help to understand the space better.
Stars
Stars are
illuminating heavenly objects tha
t twinkling and can be viewed through the telescope.
Planets
A planet is a body, which is not self-illuminating and revolves around stars.

It receives light from the nearest star and reflects the same back.

It receives light from the sun and emits it back into space. This is how day and night are formed on the earth.
)Concept Map
Figure 1: Concept Map
(Source: Learner)
Introduction
Earth is a unique planet in the solar system and is still beyond the complete understanding of human beings (Mancinelli, 2015). However, understanding the space is an even bigger challenge, which has been depicted in this assignment. The challenges of understanding the space can be eased to the learners, if the teachers involve them in some activities, some of which are presented in this assignment. This topic also helps the learner to confidently learn with curiosity about nature, the natural phenomenon of the universe, understand the relationships, and decipher problems in technological, scientific, and environmental contexts. Furthermore, this will help in constructing knowledge and apply the same in interpreting nature secrets. The National Science Education Standards encourage teachers to include inquiry-based teaching and technology into their instruction. Application of varied technologies, measuring instruments, and hand tools as an integral part of scientific investigations are also encouraged. Education technology tools should be effectively used in teaching to engage children actively and for better acquisition of scientific knowledge. These tools include software for data collection and analysis, probeware, computers, multimedia/hypermedia, interactive whiteboards and student response systems.
Integrating Concepts of Natural Science and Technology into the Chosen Topic
As mentioned by Huang and Hull (2017), of all these planets, only earth has a sustainable environment, making it viable for a living. Other planets too have an atmosphere; however, it is not suitable for life. The present topic ‘Earth and beyond’ is useful in learning the essential elements of earth and the universe in terms of natural sciences. Earth, along with other planets, move around the sun, and this movement is termed as a revolution or orbiting. These planets revolve around the sun in a defined path, and this is called orbit (Olson & Messeri, 2015). These orbits are elliptical and remain the same, always.
Earth revolves around the sun at a speed of approximately 30 kilometers per second. Though it rotates at this speed, it takes about 365¼ days to complete one revolution around the sun. The time taken by the earth to make one round around the sun is called one year. As stated by Meyer (2016), this period...