Home Geography for Primary Grades · Lesson III · Unit 1: Finding direction
3. How the stars show direction
Goal: Your child finds the Big Dipper and the North Star on a clear night and uses them to point north.
You'll need
- A clear evening after dark, outside with a parent
- A warm jacket and a flashlight (cover it with red cellophane or a red sock if you have one)
- Optional: a free star-map app or a printed star chart
- A geography notebook (any notebook kept just for these lessons) and a pencil
What's in the book
A short lesson on the seven bright stars of the Dipper, part of a larger group called the Great Bear, and how the two stars at the end of the Dipper point to the North Star. One sentence to copy about sailors.
The lesson, step by step
At night?
Ask: We can find directions by the sun, but how could we find north at night?
Read the lesson together, looking at the picture of the Great Bear.
Seven stars
Explain in plain words: seven bright stars make a shape like a big pan with a handle. In America we call it the Big Dipper. The book says some people thought it looked like a wagon and three horses, or a plow.
These seven stars are called the Dipper.
The pointer stars
On the picture, find the two stars at the end of the Dipper farthest from the handle. Run a finger along them and keep going: they point to the North Star.
That star is always in the north; so by it, on a clear night, you can tell the other directions at once.
Go and look
On a clear night, go outside together. Look to the northern sky (use the N sign you made last lesson to know which way). Find the Dipper, then follow the pointers to the North Star. It is not the brightest star in the sky, but it is the one that stays in place.
Once you find it, your child faces it and says: "North is in front of me, south is behind, east is on my right, west is on my left."
Copy the sentence
Your child copies the book's sentence:
Sailors out on the sea at night often find direction by looking at the North Star.
Say it back
Ask your child to tell you how to find the North Star, as if explaining it to a friend.
Afterwards
Look for the Dipper on a few more clear nights. Notice that it is in a different position at different times of night and in different seasons, but the North Star stays put.
Tip
The Dipper is easiest in spring and summer evenings, high in the north. In autumn it sits low near the northern horizon, so look from an open spot. Give your eyes ten minutes to get used to the dark.
Answers to the book's problems
Find the seven stars of the Dipper. The two stars at the end of the bowl, farthest from the handle, point to the North Star. Facing the North Star, you face north; east is on your right, west on your left and south behind you.
Worked out for this site from the scan. If a number in your copy differs, trust the book.