USOE Core Curriculum Standard
6th Grade Science
Standard 4, Objective 2: Describe the appearance and apparent motion of groups of stars in the night sky relative to Earth and how various cultures have understood and used them.
1. Locate and identify stars that are grouped in patterns in the night sky.
2. Identify ways people have historically grouped stars in the night sky.
3. Recognize that stars in a constellation are not all the same distance from Earth.
4. Relate the seasonal change in the appearance of the night sky to Earth's position.
1. Activity
* Explain to students that they are going to study the stars like astronomers. Introduce the computer program Stellarium, which allows students to explore what the night sky and constellations look like from any position on Earth on any date. While students open Stellarium at their own computers, tell students to enter a location of their choice and look for patterns in the stars of the night sky. (to do this on the taskbar on the left hand side click on the "Location Window" (F6) When the window opens, click on the magnifying glass and search for the city where the students are from.) Next have the students click on the Date/Time and change the hour to 21:00:00 (9 o' clock) so it is night time. Explain to the children that what they are seeing is what the sky is going to look like tonight at 9 o' clock. After they have navigated for a bit, have the students stop their activity and watch you demonstrate how to find the constellations in the sky (click on Constellation Labels, then Constellation Lines, and explain how people have seen pictures in the sky like a dot-to-dot). Now click on Constellation Art to show the students the pictures of the constellations. Have students explore with these tools on their computers for a couple minutes. Regain student attention to demonstrate how to find constellations from other cultures. Click on Sky and Viewing Options, then Star Lore. Do a choral read with the information about Western star lore that pulls up by default, and then have students work within groups to select a culture other than “Western” and explore the constellations of their chosen cultures. (utilize google and wikipedia) Students will need to check box that says “Use associated language for sky labeling.” As students explore their culture’s constellations, have them zoom in on one constellation and click on each of the stars that make up the constellation; clicking on the stars will show students how many light years each star is away from Earth. Have students draw and label their chosen constellation with the stars and label the distance of each of the stars in the constellation. Finally, have students click Day/Time Window and pick a month in another season. Have students discuss with their groups the changes they observe in the positions of the constellations, particularly the one they illustrated. (Variation: Have students move month by month and observe the gradual position changes. They can also see how Summer Constellations aren't visible in the winter, and Winter Constellations aren't visible in the Summer)
2. TPACK
* Content
1. Locate and identify stars that are grouped in patterns in the night sky.
2. Identify ways people have historically grouped stars in the night sky.
3. Recognize that stars in a constellation are not all the same distance from Earth.
4. Relate the seasonal change in the appearance of the night sky to Earth's position.
* Pedagogy
This activity follows a guided learning format, in which the lesson and learning is focused mainly on the activity. Students learn content by structured experimentation with a teaching tool (Stellarium in this case). This is a conceptual knowledge building activity type because students are exploring, analyzing data, and making connections between their findings and science.
* Technology
Stellarium fits perfectly with the content and pedagogy because students learn the concepts about constellations (cultures, distance of stars, seasonal changes in appearance, etc.) by directly observing and interacting with a program that allows them to explore innumerable aspects of astronomy and constellations.
* Representation
Students learn by interaction with and analysis of the information available about stars through Stellarium. Students better understand the content (constellations) because they are teaching themselves through observation instead of passively learning the information through a lecture. Because this is a hands-on activity, student learning is more meaningful and permanent.
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