Group items tagged

This website gives a list of famous astronauts and their biography. I would use this in a classroom and give each students an astronaut and have them research the astronaut and give us (the class) a short presentation on their findings. You could use this website in multiple ways.

This website includes: lesson plan, worksheets, higher-level thinking and reasoning questions for students. It has four weeks of activities to better understand the solar system and the entire universe and what it is made of. The four weeks are sections off into groups: Universe, Solar System, Earth and Geography. This website list all materials needed, the background information needed, higher-level thinking questions asked to students, diagrams and visual on each subject matter. There is a lab that gets the students working together and reasoning through their connections and answers. I would use this in my third grade classroom to help the students reason on why the planets rotate like they do, and other higher-level thinking questions. This will help the students reason, think on higher-levels of questions not just in science but in all subject areas.

Great find!

This site gives tons of step-by-step experiments in different categories (air, animals, astronomy, chemistry, etc.) I like that they caution you on what could happen if you do a certain step wrong!!!

I found lots of dead ends when I clicked through the list...be aware of out-dated resources!

This is a project to use (instead of the solar system diagrams) to show how the solar system looks in 3D. This project seems very interesting in that it is not the same as all the other solar system projects and it's a new way to show the solar system. Also all types of learners can learn from this project. As a teacher I would have the students make the snow globe, explain their process and what they were thinking before and after it was complete, and was it an easy project or hard. Also, I would include a written paper in the requirement for the snow globe project. In doing so, students can revisit their information on the planets and solar system as well as see what they do or do not know about each planet. I like this project because it fun and different from what is the usual solar system project.

A clear calendar by month and year. Nice way to compare one month to another. Can select Northern or Southern hemispheres.

This is a step-by-step explanation of a moon phase lesson. Gives a logical order to the lessons. Provides an idea for a hands on experiment too. Give many more moon links.

This website actually contains a list of the "10 iPad Apps for Teaching Kids About Science." This app is listed as number five but I feel it is probably the coolest. This app allows you to view the moon from many different angles. You can view it from Earth or get closer with satellite views. The coolest thing about this app is that it is HD. So you can zoom in and really examine the moon's surface. There are places where you can read facts about people and modules that have landed on the moon. This app could be used by students of any age. It would be a valuable tool in a high school astronomy class and I think it would pair nicely with that Moon Dust activity I posted before. I could simply show my kindergarten students what the moon's surface looks like and then allow them to play with "Moon Dust." I would probably use this as an early lesson in a unit on the moon. It is not stated on this site how much this app costs exactly, just that it is under $20.

The Children's University of Manchester produces this page. It is absolutely fabulous! The website is interactive, teaching students about a variety of different subjects in a way that is appealing to children. The brief lesson could be used as a quick introduction to a topic, or a quick recap over a topic. The site I have linked to is about the phases of the moon. The children can see a short animated clip showing the sun with the earth and moon orbiting around it. The clip has facts throughout, and a brief quiz at the end. I would highly recommend incorporating this site into your classroom!

I choose this website because it is colorful and informational. Also this website is fun! Students are able to learn about different stars' properties (color, size, temperature) and understand that not all of the stars that humans see are still shinning. I would integrate this website into the classroom by using this resource for students to create a diorama of the different types of stars and properties of each.

I choose this website because it is interactive and fun for younger students. It also covers a lot of information that is useful in studying the solar system. For use in the classroom, I would have my students use this website as a resource in creating a project on the patterns in the solar system.

The website includes directions for a great kinesthetic approach to teaching constellations. This project consists of star cookies which the students configure into different constellations. I selected this resource to use during my stars lesson plan. After seeing the stars in the distances I feel this project will bring the idea of constellations down to earth.

I was surprised to find this website to be written in French! It would require some calculation to convert the recipe from grams to our more standard measurements, or at least a kitchen scale. This recipe isn't essential to the star shape, though, which could be achieved with regular sugar cookie dough and a small star cutter.I do love the idea of placing the cookies in a pattern and connecting with chalk or crayon to either "create" new constellations (for which students could also write related myths or stories) or review and recreate the existing constellations under study.

This app could work great for teacher or student-directed learning. It shows the universe in a way that is more engaging that simple, flat pictures. It's a versitile app that can be adapted for a variety of in-class or at-home activities. Students can use it to find out how close planets/contellations are to a given object in space or they can simply pick a planet/constellation they want to learn about and teach the class about it. It could be used as a great introductory or motivational tool. It can also be used as a fun reward for students who finish their work early.

This is a brief explanation on why the sky is blue followed by an activity. I chose this source because I have always wanted to know the definitive answer to the question: Why is the sky blue? I would use this in an older elementary classroom as a lesson followed by a lab activity.

This is an activity illustrating how the tiny particles of the ringed planets can be seen so far away despite their small size. I chose this activity because I liked it, and because I liked that it had a discussion after its completion. I imagine my class will complete this activity and then we will discuss our findings as a whole group.

This is a lab activity where the students cut out the shapes of the planets and hang them from string making a solar system mobile. I chose this source because I like the hands on learning aspect it brings to the classroom.

This is a hands-on activity that allows students to grasp the idea of how far the planets are from each other and from the sun. The activity starts by having the students perform simply mathematics to convert the distance in astronomical units to centimeters. I really like that the students have to perform this task themselves and that it incorporates mathematics into the science lesson. After determining each planets distance from the sun, the students use color beads on a string to show each planets distance from the sun.

Love the science/math integration!

Application shows the earth and the day and night region at any location on the planet by latitude, longitude and altitude. I think this would be a fun activity to have the students do while talking about planets. It lets the students explore the suns rotation.The teacher could create a sheet asking students so draw where the sun is shinning and certain locations at certain times.

This interactive game quizzes students on facts about the planets. It could be used as either a way to review what students have learned about planets or an introductory tool to familiarize them with the planets.I think students will enjoy this because they are learning information in a fun and interactive way.

This site had a great diagram that showed how the earth is tilted and where it is located according to the sun during each season. I would use this site as a resource during my lessons. This could also be used as a center for the students because it had a season quiz and season themed sheets.

This video uses humor and science to give a brief history and explain what constellations are and what they represent to both astronomers and ordinary people. I chose this resource because it's been my experience that kids LOVE BrainPOP videos. These videos are a useful tool because they make they make good use of humor while still conveying the facts behind the topic presented. They're also good because each video contains quizzes and other activities after the video. I would use this video to introduce what constellations are before having students look for them with either a telescope or a picture of the night sky.

This website has lots of tools that both students and teachers can use to learn about the night sky. It has games as well as classroom activities.