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Astronomy Outline Big Idea The study of space involves understanding various types of cosmic bodies and their inter- actions. Essential Questions • What do we see when we look at the sky at night? • How does the Earth compare with the other planets? • How can we use charts to locate and identify star patterns? Vocabulary • Planet—A cosmic body that orbits around a star, has enough gravity to be round, and travels in a path free of other similar-sized objects. • Solar System—The sun and all celestial objects bound to it by gravity, including planets, dwarf planets, asteroids, comets, meteoroids, and dust. • Star—A massive, hot, glowing ball of plasma, or ionized gas. • Constellation—A specific region of the sky and all the stars it contains. Many constel- lations contain familiar asterisms. • Asterism—Star pattern recognized by various cultures as a character from history or mythology. The patterns most people call “constellations” are known by astronomers as asterisms. • Light Pollution—Ambient sky glow caused by artificial lighting. • Meteorite—Also called a “shooting star” or a “falling star,” a meteor is a piece of rock, ice, or dust entering Earth’s atmosphere. It streaks across the sky very quickly and usually burns up before hitting the ground. Astronomers call a stray piece of rock, dust, or ice in the solar system that has not entered Earth’s atmosphere a meteoroid, a meteor that hits the ground a meteorite, and a very bright meteor a fireball. • Lunar Phase—A distinct stage in the cycle of the moon as it looks from Earth. • New Moon—The lunar phase that occurs when the moon is positioned between the sun and the Earth, making the moon look dark from Earth. • Full Moon—The lunar phase that occurs when the moon is positioned on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun, making the moon look fully bright. • Quarter—A lunar phase in which half of the side of the moon visible from Earth is illuminated. The First Quarter (with the right-hand side of the moon shining) occurs after the New Moon, and the Last Quarter (with the left-hand side of the moon shin- ing) occurs after the Full Moon. • Crescent—A lunar phase between a New Moon and a Quarter, in which less than half of the side of the moon visible from Earth is illuminated. Great Smoky mountainS inStitute at tremont 1 Astronomy Outline • Gibbous—A lunar phase between a Quarter and a Full Moon, in which more than half of the side of the moon visible from Earth is illuminated. • Waxing—Becoming larger. The moon appears to be waxing for the first half of its cycle, starting from the New Moon and approaching the Full Moon. • Waning—Becoming smaller. The moon appears to be waning for the second half of its cycle, starting from the Full Moon and approaching the New Moon. 2 Hour Outline • Introduction (10 minutes) • Trip to the Moon (20 minute rotation of Moon Phases and Crash Landing) • Design an Alien • Solar System Walk • Make Your Own Constellation (20 minutes) • Sky Watching (20 minutes) 1 Hour Outline • Introduction (10 minutes) • Solar System Walk (30 minutes) • Sky Watching (20 minutes) Great Smoky mountainS inStitute at tremont 2 Astronomy Activities INTRODUCTION 10 Minutes Lead In Explain to the students that for the next hour (or two, depending on the program length) they will be thinking about the universe beyond our planet. Ask the group why they think people are so intrigued by space. procedures Separate the students into groups of five or so and ask them to think of as many everyday things as they can with names having to do with space. These could be cars, kinds of food, toys, fictional characters, or anything else they can come up with. Groups can write their lists on paper or just discuss. Wrap Up Bring the group back together and ask them to share what they came up with. List the items on the board and ask the students what kinds of categories you could use to classify them. First, categorize them by type of item: for example, Mars Bars, Starburst, Milky Way, and Orbit Gum would all go together. Next, put the items in different categories based on the type of astronomical object, so that Mars Bars would now go with Saturn and Mercury automobiles. How many different types of astronomical objects are represented? What other types can the students think of? TRIp TO THE MOON 20 Minutes Lead In Keep the list of different types of astronomical objects where the whole group can see it, and ask them to put the objects in order of dis- tance from the Earth. Which are closest and which are farthest away? A sample list might include: • Moon (It’s 238,857 miles from Earth) • Rocky planets: • Venus (25 million miles) • Mars (35 million miles) • Mercury (48 million miles) • Sun (92 million miles) • Asteroid Belt (Between Mars and Jupiter) Great Smoky mountainS inStitute at tremont 3 Astronomy Activities • Gas Giant planets: • Jupiter (365 million miles) • Saturn (746 million miles) • Uranus (1.6 billion miles) • Neptune (2.68 billion miles) • Comets (They’re sometimes farther away than dwarf planets but can come within the inner Solar System.) • Other stars Numbers are included on this list in case the students are curious. There is no need to bring up these exact distances at this point, just be sure that the students understand the general order of distances and realize that the moon is the closest by far. In fact, the moon is the only celestial object humans have set foot on. procedures Explain to the students that they will be thinking about many of these celestial objects today, and because the moon is closest, they’ll start there. There are two activities they’ll do. Keeping the students in their small groups, send about half of the class to one station and about half to the other. At station one, the students will explore the phases of the moon as seen from Earth. Give each small group a set of moon phase cards, a styrofoam ball, and a lamp, and explain that the ball they are holding will represent the moon and their heads will represent the Earth. The lamp, of course, is the sun. Have each student stand with his or her back to the lamp and hold the moon ball up at arm’s length so that some light shines on it. Explain that just like the Earth has day and night, so does the moon. Ask them to point to where it is night on their moons. Why is it night there? Where is it daytime? Why? How about on their “Earths,” or heads? Now demonstrate how to put the moon balls in orbit by mov- ing the ball around your head from right to left. Have the students try it, watching how the phase of the moon ball changes. After they have had time to explore, ask why the moon has phases. Why is only a portion of their moon balls illuminated? So why is only a portion of the moon illuminated? The dark area is the nighttime side of the moon, where the sun is not shining. The lit side of the moon will always be pointing in the direction of the sun. To review, have each small group put the moon phase cards in order. At station two, the students will work in their small groups to de- termine what is needed to survive on the moon. Pass out a laminated Great Smoky mountainS inStitute at tremont 4 Astronomy Activities “crash landing” sheet to each group and explain that they have become a team of lunar explorers at a time in the future when humans have established bases for research on the moon. Their vehicle has wrecked about sixty miles from the nearest base, which is not too far to walk in the moon’s lower gravity, but will still take over forty-eight hours in- cluding time to rest. Fortunately it is daylight on the moon and will be for the entire time of their journey (it takes the moon 27 Earth days to make one revolution). From the list provided, they must choose the five most important things they will carry. Give the students about five min- utes to come up with their lists and then bring the small groups back to- gether to share. Some of the items are more useful than others, but there are only two that are completely useless—follow the NASA engineer’s list to lead the wrap-up discussion. Wrap Up Ask the students what they learned about the moon from these ac- tivities. Would they ever consider visiting the moon? Teacher’s note: The following two activities can be done at the same time, like the last two. With smaller groups they can be done consecu- tively, with the entire group participating in one activity and then the other, but larger groups should be split up. For very large groups (50 or more students), there can be a rotation of three centers: Trip to the Moon, Design an Alien, and Solar System Walk. This rotation would last about an hour. DEsIgN AN ALIEN 20 minutes Lead In Ask the students what they already know about the other planets besides Earth, especially about the conditions on those planets. Could humans live there? Why? procedures Explain that each student or pair of students will be in charge of designing an alien life form that can live on another planet. They will be given a description of a planet and should think about what adapta- tions an alien living there would need to have in order to breathe, move around, eat, and defend itself.
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