SCIENCE
CONTENT
AND RESOURCES
CLUB ACTIVITIES
Astrophysics: Kindergarten through Second Grade
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Star Maps: Make Your Own Constellations
Students are given xeroxed portions of the Norton Star Atlas, and connect the dots to make their own constellations. We discuss how astronomers find things in the sky. Students identify symbols for various objects and create a legend for their part of the sky map. As an addition, students tape paper over flashlights and punch small holes in the paper to make their own constellations. They then must present their constellation to the class.
Submitted By: Sten Odenwald, Holy Redeemer Elementary/Middle School Astronomy Club -
Relative Sizes of Things
Students create a scale model of the solar system using everything from a basketball (for the sun) to M&Ms and seeds representing the approximate sizes of the planets. Students can walk through the solar system telling what they know about each object. An interesting addition to this is construction of a model milky way showing distances to some of the stars and clusters we see in the night sky.
Submitted By: Lou Mayo, Sligo Creek Elementary Astronomy Club -
Space Art
Students are given many different Hubble Space Telescope photos, and encouraged to create their own space art using the archetypes they find for nebulae, planets, stars and galaxies.
Submitted By: Sten Odenwald, Holy Redeemer Elementary/Middle School Astronomy Club -
Tips for Holding a Viewing Night
I have one online article that may be of interest to ASAC newsgroup members. It is a general introduction and set of suggestions entitled "Tips for holding a viewing night" at:
http://outreach.atnf.csiro.au/education/teachers/viewing/
Submitted By: Rob Hollow, CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility -
Astronomy Screensaver
It's a multi-facetted application that allows you to keep abreast of status reports, news and announcements of events taking place at ESA Science and the most recent near-real-time images from SOHO. I don't know of a NASA equivalent but many of the projects are joint with NASA. For those interested in Solar observations, there's less chance of missing exciting solar storms (like the one that's been going on for the last few days) because the screensaver updates its images whenever you're online.
Download it here: http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=34651
Submitted By: Mike Cripps, Neatherd High School Astronomy Club
