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Free Lesson Plans for Teachers
Alpha Stage
What Time is It?
March 8, 2007







Time Magazine is running an article entitled, "Saving Even More
Daylight."

The article begins, "Better double-check your appointment schedules
this Sunday, March 11. That's when daylight saving time will start —
three weeks earlier than usual — in most of the U.S. and Canada. In
an attempt to save electricity, the U.S. Congress introduced a
provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 mandating that clocks
"spring forward" three weeks earlier, on the second Sunday in March,
and "fall back" a week later, on the first Sunday in November. But the
energy conservation that extra hour of sunlight is supposed to deliver
comes with a cost: computer glitches that some fear could run to Y2K
proportions.."
Read the Article!!


Discussion-Starters for Younger Children

  • What time of day do your students like the best: morning,
    afternoon or evening? Why?
  • Consider asking your students to poll the members of
    their family. Give them a chance to write down the
    question. After students bring back their data use it for a
    math exercise.

  • Why do your students think that so many people are afraid of
    the dark?
  • Consider asking students to make up a story explaining
    why somebody is afraid of the dark. The entire class
    could also do this together.

  • Why do your students think that most people work during the
    day and sleep at night? (People could turn on lights and work at
    night.)
  • Consider asking students to explain the meaning of the
    words "day time" and "night time" in groups of two or
    three.

  • Ask your students how they think the world would be different
    if it was dark all the time.
  • Consider having students use a Venn Diagram for to
    compare the world as it is today to a world with only
    night. Students could also draw pictures of what a
    world that had no day time would look like.



Discussion-Starters for Older Students

  • Vocabulary terms to discuss: Provision; Conservation;
    "Cascading Failures"; and, "Out of Kilter".

  • According to the article, Professor Michael Downing said,
    "Congress has been studying (changing the time) for 100 years
    and has yet to come up with reliable energy savings." Ask your
    students how one could determine if Professor Downing is
    correct. If Professor Downing is correct, what lessons should
    we learn from Congress's failure?
  • Consider asking students to develop a list of questions
    that somebody would need to answer to determine the
    accuracy of Professor Downing's statement. They
    could work in small groups.

  • Many people doubt that the change in time will save electricity.
    Ask your students to imagine that they are members of the U.S.
    Congress working on legislation designed to save electricity.
    What three strategies would they include in their bill? Why?
  • Your class could become a "Mock Congress" and debate
    these strategies, after students develop them in smaller
    groups. Rather than having each student represent an
    individual member of Congress, you could have
    different state delegations represented.

  • Tell your students to imagine that every watch and clock in the
    world stopped working. How would society change? Do your
    students think that these changes would be for good, bad or
    both?
  • Students could develop fictional stories in response to
    these questions. How did all of the clocks/watches stop
    working?

  • This could be a good opportunity to teach students how to tell
    time by using the sun.
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