How Night Came to Be: Myth, Meaning, and Earth Science
Grade: 3 and 5 Subject: Literature, Science, Geography Time: 2–3 class periods
Overview: Students study How Night Came to Be as a traditional myth while learning to distinguish a story's symbolic explanation from a scientific explanation. The story may be connected to Brazil or South America only when the selected edition/source identifies that setting.
Learning Objectives
- Define a myth as a traditional story that may communicate cultural beliefs, values, or explanations.
- Identify literary elements such as setting, characters, problem, and resolution.
- Locate Brazil and South America on a map when relevant to the selected story.
- Explain the scientific cause of day and night using the rotation of Earth.
- Distinguish symbolic or literary explanation from scientific explanation.
Procedure
- Read: Read the selected myth aloud and identify its characters, setting, events, and explanation for night.
- Discuss myths: Compare the story with another traditional story students know. Emphasize that traditional stories can communicate meaning without functioning as modern scientific explanations.
- Map: Locate South America and Brazil if the selected source connects the story to Brazil.
- Science investigation: Use a globe and light source to model day and night. Students observe which part of Earth is illuminated as the globe turns.
- Compare explanations: Grade 3 identifies the myth's explanation. Grade 5 writes a comparison explaining how the literary explanation differs from the scientific explanation.
Assessment
Grade 3: identify one characteristic of a myth and summarize the story's explanation. Grade 5: accurately explain that Earth's rotation produces the day/night cycle and distinguish that explanation from the myth's symbolism.
Teacher Note
Do not teach “revolution of the Earth” as the cause of day and night. Earth rotates on its axis about once every 24 hours; Earth revolves around the Sun over about a year. NASA describes rotation as spinning on an axis and revolution as orbital motion. citeturn2search0turn2search3