Science Challenge

The activity we chose to do was to have students observe the stars at night using stellarium. We will have the students look for constellations that are currently in exitstence where they live. Students will then work on their own to create constellations of their own and compare the brightness of the stars in the constellations they create and the current constellations. In this activity, the teacher will be showing the students the different constellations that can be seen in the area where they live while the students watch and observe. We would then have the students look at the night sky through Stellarium and work to create their own constellations. The teacher would of course model how this is to be done so that the students will know exactly what they should be doing. The students will watch and observe while the teacher shows them how to create a constellation so they will be able to accomplish this task on their own. After the students have had some time to create and explore their own constellations, the teacher should then model how to compare and contrast the brightness of different stars located in their constellations. This can be accomplished by the teacher using the constellations he/she has created by pointing out which stars are light and which stars are dark. The teacher can then go into more detail and discuss with the students on why some stars are light and some are dark. This could be a great classroom discussion. The students would then look at the constellations they have made and compare and contrast the brightness and darkness of the stars in their constellations.

The content we are using for this activity is for 6th grade. The standard we chose is Standard 4: Students will understand the scale of size, distance between objects, movement, and apparent motion (due to Earth's rotation) of objects in the universe and how cultures have understood, related to and used these objects in the night sky. 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. Locate and identify stars that are grouped in patterns in the night sky.

The pedagogy is allowing the students to observe the stars by finding constellations and describing the relationships between the different stars in the sky, which would really engage students in the learning process. This goes allow great with the content we have chosen to present.

The technology we will be using is the Stellarium program which will be fun and engaging for students while they study about the stars. This will also allow the students to observe the night sky in all places throughout the world.

The representation of the content we have chosen is extremely visual and the students would be able to observe the constellations in the night sky, but alter them in different ways as well. This activity will help us reach the objective in a way that is fun and engaging that might not be possible without this technology.