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Plastic cups, 1 per student. Translucent or transparent cups are best, but others are fine too.

Permanent marker

Soil, enough to fill one third of the cups. Potting soil or sand work well. The soil should be as dry as possible.

Pebbles, gravel, or small rocks, enough to fill one third of the cups. Dark colors work best, but lighter colors are fine too.

Water, enough to fill one third of the cups.

Towels (3) or paper towels

A place in the sun to leave half of the cups, preferably indoors (e.g. a window sill). If you place the cups outside, try to find an area protected from wind. If this is not available, a place under an incandescent light source of 60 watt or higher is fine too.

A place in the shade and away from any heat source (like a radiator) to leave half of the cups, preferably indoors (e.g. a table in your classroom that is not near a window). If you place the cups outside, try to find an area protected from the wind or with equal wind exposure as the area in the sun.

Student demonstration thermometer (1), like this thermometer.

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1. Place your materials at three stations: one with soil, one with rocks, and one with access to water. Make sure the stations are not in the sun. Each station should have a towel or paper towels for students to wipe their hands.

2. Divide the class in three groups of about equal size and assign each group to a station.

3. Explain to students that they will receive a cup and need to fill it. Show an example and explain how high you want the cup to be filled. Opaque or translucent cups need to be filled to about 1/2 inch of the brim, so the sunlight can reach the surface. Transparent cups can be filled halfway as shown in Figure 2.

4. At each station, give half of the students a cup with a sun symbol drawn onto it, and the other half a cup without it. Ask students to fill the cup. For any station with a smaller group, fill one cup yourself so the class has an equal number of cups filled with water, soil, and rocks.

5. Direct students to store the cups in the sun or in the shade. Cups that have a sun symbol need to be stored in the sun until you observe them, and the other cups need to be in the shade. Note that the position of the sun shifts during the day, so move the cups as needed.

6. Explain to the class that all the materials they used to fill the cups started in the shade. They will come back to the cups later in the day to observe what happened. Now, have the class discuss in small groups what they think will happen.

7. Ask students to draw what they observed on their worksheet.

Explain that the top row shows cups with a sun. It represents the cup that was placed in the sun. Find the cup that contains the materials you just observed. Color the thermometer to show how the surface of this material felt. Color all the way if it felt hot, halfway if it felt warm and only a little if it felt cold.

The cup just below it represents the cup with the same material that was placed in the shade. Color the thermometer to show how this material's surface felt.

8. Rotate groups to another station so that students who observed the water cups will now pick a cup with soil, etc. Students should then repeat steps 9 and 10 with their new material.

9. Repeat step 11 so all students can observe all three materials.

resource:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/teacher-resources/lesson-plans/sunlight-on-earth-surface#lesson

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Fry an Egg on the Sidewalk! June 2016 Gilbert AZ