Modeling Earths Atmospheric Layers

1. Start with a large piece of paper. You can use legal paper or ~ 3 sq. ft of butcher/chart paper. 2. Draw the Earth. Use coloring utensils to trace a Earth in the center of the paper. Be sure to leave space to draw around it. Color the Earth blue and green to represent the continents and oceans. 3. Draw the troposphere, which is the first layer of the atmosphere. The troposphere extends 16 km above Earth. a. Use the following scale - 1mm=1km. Put a series of dots around Earth, 16 mm from the Earths surface. b. Connect the dots and label it the troposphere. Color it yellow. Draw pictures to help indicate what happens in this layer. You can add airplanes, people, weather occurrences, bad ozone. 4. Draw the stratosphere, which is the second layer of the atmosphere. It extends 16km-50km above the Earths surface. a. Measure and draw a circle 50 mm from Earths surface. Be careful- do not draw it starting from the troposphere, remember to start measuring from Earths surface. b. Connect the dots and label it stratosphere. Color it orange. c. Draw pictures to help indicate what happens here. Jet streams occur here, which are fast moving currents of air between the 2 layers. This is also where the ozone layer is found, which absorbs ultraviolet radiation. 5. Draw the mesosphere, which extends 50km-90km from the Earths surface. a. Measure and draw a circle 90 mm from the Earths surface. b. Label this layer mesosphere. Color it red. c. Draw pictures to help show characteristics. It is the coldest layer of the atmosphere. Radio waves are reflected to Earth and meteors burn up in this layer. 6. Label the ozone. The ozone is not a main layer of the atmosphere, but plays an important role in how it works. a. The ozone is between the stratosphere and the mesosphere. Its symbol is O3 because it is made of three oxygen atoms. b. Color a thin, blue line to represent the ozone. Make a small section of the line dotted (----) to represent the hole in the ozone layer. 7. Draw the thermosphere. This is the fourth layer of the atmosphere. It extends 90km-300km from the Earths surface. a. Label it the thermosphere and color it green. b. Draw pictures to help show characteristics. The thermosphere is very hot and contains light shows called auroras. 8. Beyond the thermosphere is the exosphere. It extends 300km-> 600 km. a. Color this gray and label it exosphere. b. When meteoroids enter Earths atmosphere, they enter through the thermosphere, which is extremely hot. Because of the heat, most meteoroids burn up. Draw and label a meteor entering Earths atmosphere.

Modeling Earths Atmospheric Layers

Category Well Done Grading Rubric Meets Needs Expectations Work (15 points) (10 points) Three or more Two of the layers have layers have accurate accurate measurement. measurement. Area of Concern (5 points) One or less of the layers are accurately measured.

(20 points) Measurement All layers are accurately measured. Color Coding All layers are color coded correctly. Labels All layers are correctly labeled. All symbols or drawings are accurate placed.

Three or more Two of the One or less of layers are color layers are color the layers are coded correctly. coded correctly. color coded correctly. Five layers are Three layers Two or less correctly are correctly layers are labeled. labeled. correctly labeled. Five symbols or Three symbols drawings are or drawings are accurately accurately placed. placed.

Symbols

Neatness

Two or less symbols or drawings are accurately placed. The drawing is The drawing is There is visible The drawing neat. There are neat. There are evidence of looks like it has no eraser a few eraser several been in your marks or marks or mistakes. The backpack for a redrawn lines redrawn lines. paper is month. There is visible. The Students name wrinkled and or visible evidence student name is is on the back. ripped. of many on the back. Students name mistakes. is not on back Students name or is missing. is missing or not on back.