.:Objectives:.

ü  Unit Topic or Theme:  Astronomy

ü  Lesson Topic or Theme: Constellations

ü  Lesson Objectives: learning the sky’s Constellations and what stars make up them.

ü  Instructional Technique: the students will work in teams to locate the different constellations in the night sky, as well as learn different facts about them.

ü  Instructional Materials: Stellarium and hand out work sheet

ü  Theoretical Perspective: Academic rationalism. Why is this information important for your students to learn. (content focus of the lesson)

Ø  I believe that its important for students to learn astronomy because its liked to a lot of different things. Students can use astronomy for a lot of different things. They learn the differences of the planets in the solar system as well as the different impacts that each gravitational rotation each planet has around the sun and how they differ due to size and mass of the planet. It also allows students to learn the different demographics of different planets. Using astronomy, they can also learn how far away stars are and where they are in the sky. They can also use constellations to tell directions, and different times of year due to location of the constellations.

ü  Procedure: (As a teacher, what will you and the students do.)

1.     Introductory Activity (if applicable)

a.      Teach the students how to use Stellarium and the basic movements of the program.

2.     Step-by-step (descriptive outline)

a.      Go over the working of Stellarium and how to navigate inside it

b.     Set the students up into groups of two/three students to work on the packets

c.      Have the students find a constellation that they liked from todays activity to draw and write out three facts about it.

d.     Collect packets to grade as a in class activity grade

3.     Closure

a.      What do you use to conclude the activity, helps summarize activity?

·  The students will pick there favorite constellation, locate it and sketch what it looks like in the packet as well as name the stars in its constellation, they will write out three facts that go along with the constellation (the starts that make up it, the types of starts, its location etc.)

4.     Adaptations for different learners

a.      (i.e. non-native speakers, struggling readers or math phobic learners, students with poor study skills)

·   Make sure your walking around and talking with the groups to see who needs help

·  Have hand outs that outline different constellations and learning material about them.

  • Evaluation:

1.     How/ when will you determine if you have met your objectives?

Ø  Please list each of your stated objectives for the lesson. Then demonstrate how you will document successful completion for each.

§  The students will be able to use Stellarium to locate different constellations and know how to properly identify it with the stars that make up it

§  The students will be graded on how well they have located and identified the constellations

2.     Connect how the lesson leads back to meeting the objectives

a.      The lesion connects back because the students learn locations, not only in the sky but the patters that the planets take through the constellations and how they relate to the location in the sky on earth.

3.     Concerns or questions you have about teaching this lesson?

a.      Maybe the technology wont be there?

b.     Maybe wifi is down?

c.      What do you do then?

§ The students will do other various research in library books and other means of astronomy texts. I can also create subsequent hand outs and work sheets

 .:Instructions:.

How to use Stellarium:

Once you start the program you should take a look at the start page. The location in on the far left as well as the altitude above sea level. The program automatically defaults to “Earth, Paris, 38m”.  for this purpose we have already set them to Holyoke MA. Following the Location is the “FOV” which is your field of view bar. Or the angle at which your viewing the sky. Its defaulted to 60 degrees. Next shows the rates of frame for the animations, and then lastly the date and time, its shown in the year-month-day format and the time in in 24 hour time.

There are two menus that you will need they pop out from the left side and the bottom. The Left menu controls the broader settings, and the bottom controls the  viewing settings.

Date and Time

By typing the number “8” into the system it brings you back to the present date and time. To change the date and time to match specifically what we need you can use the short cut key F5 or by clicking on the second button on the left menu (it looks like a clock). Once you adjust it make sure you close the window.

The sky moves in real time, but you can control the rate of motion using the four buttons on the bottom of the screen, Reverse, Play/pause, Now, and Forward. Clicking the Reverse and the Forward button multiple times will allow you to speed up the motion in either direction.

Sky View

You can change the point of view on the sky by dragging it with your mouse by clicking and holding while you move the mouse, the arrow keys will also alter the sky.

You can also remove the atmosphere that is visible by typing “A” on your keyboard. It allows you to see stars that would be hidden normally. You can also remove the ground by pressing the tree like button on the bottom menu or hitting “G”, this helps view thing below the horizon line.

Stellarium also allows you to zoom in on different things in the sky to let you take a closer look. If you click on a star or planet or any part of the sky and use the mouse wheel you can move in and out on that one location. You can also use the “/” to zoom In and the “\” to zoom out.

Another fun thing you can do in Stellarium is show the constellations. You can use the buttons on the left side of the bottom menu or you may use short cut “c”. The next button on the menu or the “V” on your keyboard show the names of the constellations. By pressing the next button or the “B” key it shows you the boundaries of them. The third button on the button on the bottom menu or the “R” key shows you the illustrations of the constellations.

Searching for stuff

The Quickest way to search for objects is to use the search window. This is found by using the magnifying glass on the bottom of the screen or by pressing F3.





.:Worksheet:.

Name:________________

Stellarium worksheet: constellations in the sky

1.      Setting the date and time to 2014-06-10 at 23:00:00 (don’t forget to pause the time), use the search Bar to locate the following planets, name what constellation they are found inside.

 

a.      Mercury

b.     The Sun

c.      The Moon

d.     Vesta

 

2.      Now set the date and time to tonight at 7pm (19:00:00). The southern sky should be visible. use the short cut key “C” to activate the constellation lines and then “V” to show the labels for them.  Located in the southwest horizon you see “Libra” is being visited by a planet.  If you cannot identify the planet use “B” to draw the boarders of the constellations and identify the planet.

 

3.      Next use the F3 button to pop open the search bar and locate Antares. What type of star is this? And what makes it so interesting?

 

 4.      Look for the trail in the sky created by the milky way, if you cannot see it hit F4 to adjust the Milky Way Brightness setting. Describe what you see? What doe sit look like to you?

 

 5.      Now I want you to locate the “Summer Triangle” its made up of Vega, Altair, and Deneb. You can locate this by dragging the screen down until the constellation Vulpecula is centered in the screen. In this part of the sky there is three very bright stars that form a triangle shape.

a.      They are each from different constellations, can you name them?

 

 b.     The star Vega is special because of its magnitude, what is it?

 

c.      Although they each appear equally as bright how far away in Light years are each of the stars?

·        Vega:

·        Altair:

·        Deneb:

d.      What star is the furthest away? What’s its Magnitude?

 

 6.      Now set the time to 05:00:00 (pause time) and drag your screen back to view the South. Locate Orion. What are the two brightest stars in this constelation?

 

 7.      Inside Orion what three stars make up his “belt”, using the “.” Short cut what star is the special star in his belt and why?

 

8.      Using the F3 search box again type in Great Nebula of Orion. Using your own words what does the Nebula look like?

 

 9.      Zooming back out, when you have the constellation illustrations on, what is the name of the constellation that looks like bull locked in an eternal struggle with Orion?

 

 10.   Still looking at Orion, he has two hunting Dogs, one “big” and one “small”, what are there names? And what is the brightest star located within them?

 
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