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As leaves turn orange, a chipmunk prepares for winter in this scene from "Our Changing Seasons."
For Grades K-2
To arrange a visit for your school group, please call (585) 697-1942.
Travel through the beautiful cycle of seasons in western New York, reviewing the months of the year (ordering and sequencing). Use both sight and hearing to observe changes in weather and environment. Compare and contrast how plants, animals and people respond (identifying variables). Measure the height of the midday sun by pointing to it in each of the four seasons. Classify major constellations and planets of the current season.
 Click here to download a typical script (64k pdf)
NYS Learning Standards: ELA1; MST3, MST4PS(1,4); MST4LE(1,3,4,5,6); MST6(2,5)Outline of the ProgramAs
soon as the students and chaperones are seated, the program presenter
greets the audience and briefly introduces the features of the Star
Theater, including the Zeiss star projector in the center of the room.
Next,
we proceed through the four seasons as we see them in western New York,
inviting children to figure out which season is being presented by
watching and listening.
Summer
The
dome fills with an all-sky image of trees with full-sized leaves.
Leaves enable trees to gather energy from sunlight. We hear the sounds
of children playing outside. It is summer!
We walk away from the
woods for a moment to watch what the sun does on the first day of
summer (also known as the summer solstice, usually June 21).
The
summer sun rises far north of east and goes to a very high place in the
sky in the middle of the day. Children point to the sun so their arms
will "remember" how high it is.
(Of course, we know that the
sun does not really go up. Instead, the sun seems to rise because the
Earth we live on is always turning. The turning of the Earth makes day
and night.)
What are some of the things people can do in the
summertime? We see pictures of a family in a garden and hikers at the
RMSC Cumming Nature Center.
Other summertime pictures show
that flowers are blooming. Animals are active because food is abundant.
We note that the snowshoe hare, or varying hare, has a fur coat the
same color as the ground. That coloring protects the hare by making him
harder for predators to see. That kind of protection is called
camouflage.
Autumn, or Fall
The sounds of crickets rubbing their wings together fills the air. The leaves have changed to yellow, orange and red.
In
the Planetarium sky, the sun rises directly above the green letter "E"
for east, as it does every year on the first day of autumn, usually
September 22.
When the sun reaches its highest point in the
sky, children point to the it and notice that it is lower than the
midday summer sun.
Many trees are losing their leaves, so many
people spend autumn days raking leaves—or playing in leaf piles! Autumn
is the time when many people celebrate Halloween, by carving pumpkins.
Winter
is not here yet, but it is coming. Some animals prepare to migrate; for
example, some geese gather in flocks to fly south for the winter. Other
animals gather and store food for winter, for example chipmunks. Other
animals, for example woodchucks, eat as much as possible to build up
the body fat that will sustain them through a winter of hibernation.
Winter
The trees are bare. The wind, blowing over the branches and twigs, makes a howling sound.
The sun rises far south of east on the first day of winter, usually December 21.
At
midday, children point to the sun and compare its position to those in
earlier seasons. The sun is lower than in autumn and much lower than in
summer. Shadows are long; days are short.
What are some of the
things people do in the winter? If there's enough snow, people may go
to a park and slide downhill on sleds or saucers or toboggans. Because
most trees and bushes have lost their leaves, deer can be easy to see
in a winter landscape. If you are quiet and patient you can feed some
birds, such as chickadees, from your hand. Our friend the chipmunk is
in a deep sleep (but not hibernating). The chipmunk will wake up
several times during the winter to eat some of the food stored during
the fall. Any food that is not found will serve as seeds for new plants
next year.
The snowshoe hare appears again. Now its coat is
white, the same color as the snow. Once again, camouflage protects the
snowshoe hare from predators. This animal is called a snowshoe hare
because its very furry hind feet work like snowshoes, enabling the hare
to walk on the surface of snow without sinking in.
Spring
Trees have buds that will soon become leaves. We hear the sound of water as snow melts and flows in streams and creeks.
On
the first day of spring, usually March 20, the sun rises right on top
of the "E" for east, just as it did in the autumn. At midday it reaches
the same height in the sky as in autumn.
We see that the sun
moves in a yearly cycle: high in summer, lower in autumn, very low in
winter, back up to a higher position in spring, and so on.
In
springtime, experts can drill small holes in maple trees and get sap,
which can be boiled to make maple syrup. Many people think of
springtime as the best time to fly a kite. Flowers are blooming. The
lilacs are the most famous springtime flowers in the Rochester area.
A
characteristic sound of spring (for a couple of weeks beginning in
early April) is the chirping of the tiny frogs known as spring peepers.
Many animal babies are born in springtime, so they will have the whole summer to learn how to survive before winter comes again.
Bonus sound!
It
can happen at any time of year: the sound of a thunderstorm. We "go
inside" to view a short video clip showing how our Earth travels around
the sun each year. Later on in school, you will learn that we have
seasons because the axis of the Earth is tilted. For now, however, we
quickly conclude the video and "go outside" to watch day turn to night.
Your Night Sky
The
program concludes with a tour of stars, constellations and planets you
can see in the real sky at the time of your presentation.------------------------------------------------------------------------ Further information and web sites outside of RMSCThe New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) offers many informative web pages. Check the sections called "Animals, Plants, Aquatic Life" and "Education."
http://www.dec.ny.gov
Make
a "rain stick" to re-create the sound of a shower in the forest—and
find out about frogs around the world. For instructions, visit this web
page at San Francisco's Exploratorium: http://www.exploratorium.edu/frogs/rain_stick/index.html
To
make the sound of a person walking in snow, use a trick that was
invented by sound-effects artists for radio shows and movies: firmly
squeeze an unopened box of cornstarch. Tip: put heavy tape over the
edges to minimize leaks!
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