Lowell Observatory Navajo and Hopi Astronomy Outreach Program July 2016—June 2017 The Partnerships During the 2016-17 school year we had 8 partnerships. In traditional Navajo-Hopi partnerships, the astronomer and teacher together choose hands-on activities to do during individual classroom visits by the astronomer. In the traditional model, astronomers make at least 4 trips to the school throughout the school year to lead the selected activities. Each activity is standalone and is carried out during part of one school day. In the summer of 2016, we designed a new Project Based Learning curriculum package for the Navajo-Hopi program designed to enhance students’ ability to see themselves as scientists. The curriculum, which focuses on self-directed exploration, is tied to state, Common Core, Next Generation Science, and Diné standards, and involves reading, writing, math, and science. It was designed to be implemented as a week-long project for 5th grade centered on the characteristics of the planets in the solar system. Three of our partnerships served as tests for this new curriculum, beginning with a partnership between the designers of the unit, Todd Gonzales and Verna Tallsalt. Travis Brown Travis Brown partnered with Mary Washburn and her combined 3rd and 4th grade class of 20 students in a traditional partnership at Kaibeto Boarding School. This school is a 2.5-hour drive from Flagstaff. He came once a week for a three hour and twenty-minute afternoon session for the spring semester of 2017, which allowed for an explanation and completion of one and sometimes two activities. Travis was able to visit and return to Flagstaff in the same day. Ordinarily we do not work with such young grades, but Ms. Washburn had signed up in the spring when she was expecting to teach 6th grade and then found herself teaching 3rd/4th and asked to continue in the program. Since we had someone to partner with her and no teacher on the waiting list, we allowed this to go forward. Travis accomplished the following activities in the course of his many visits: • What do we know/How do we know it/What do we want to know? Each student was given the opportunity to establish a baseline of knowledge and special interests. Travis introduced the Scientific Method of inquiry and revisited the list of things the students wanted to know throughout the semester until all of the initial questions were answered. • Black Box activity: Students learned about indirect evidence and the frustration of never knowing the answer by analyzing the shape of foam pieces inside opaque boxes by rattling an internal marble against them. • Navajo Constellations: Students constructed planispheres of Greek and Navajo constellations, and each chose one Navajo constellation to study and created a sand painting of it. These were all displayed in the school hallway afterward. • Orbits: Students orbited around Travis in an outdoor field, faster when closer and slower when farther out. They learned about radial proximity, elliptical and circular orbits, and the usual inevitability of celestial objects to go in the same direction in solar systems. • Scale Model of the Solar System: Students laid out the 1000-yard model of the solar system on the school campus. • Edible Rovers: Students studied the form & function of landers and rovers that have landed on other bodies and designed and then built them out of food (graham crackers, frosting for glue, etc.) This gave students an understanding of the purpose and complexity of existing rovers and an experience with engineering. • Egg Drop: Students designed and built ‘landers’ for uncooked eggs and Travis dropped them from the highest part of their playground. Students learned of the importance of deceleration length. • Crater Modeling: Students took turns dropping pebble ‘meteors’ into flour coated with a thin layer of cocoa. They learned about crater circularity, ejecta lines, and crater dating techniques. • Methods of Flight: Students discussed gravity and the various methods of flight. Travis built and launched a hot air balloon made from a trash bag, aluminum foil, and birthday candles. Students learned about hot air rising. • The Reasons for the Seasons: Students proposed possible reasons for the seasons and Travis explored each scientifically until the students concluded axial tilt was the culprit. • Moon Phases: Students were each given a ‘moon on a stick’ and were made to understand the reason for moon phases. • Venus’ atmosphere: In order to safely demonstrate the effects of acids (as found in that planet’s atmosphere) students were taken outside and shown Styrofoam dissolving in acetone. • RADAR: In order to demonstrate how scientists perceive Venus’ surface through opaque clouds students fabricated landscapes in boxes, then gleaned a rough idea of the landscapes by poking skewers through the boxes’ opaque lids. • Virtual Orbital Simulation: Students participated in a trial-and-error construction, launch, and eventual orbit and safe landing of a virtual rocket in the rocket simulation program Kerbal Space Program. They learned of the importance of aerodynamics, thrust-to- weight ratio, staging, boosters & explosive bolts, fins, landing legs, and parachutes. They came away with an understanding of the importance of Newton’s Third Law in space and how thrust in different parts of an orbit affects periapsis and apoapsis. • Chemical Rockets: Students built, launched, and retrieved a model rocket, realizing their conception of rocketry built in Kerbal Space Program. • Star party: Travis coordinated with NAU’s AIMER program to produce a school/community-wide daytime star party and evening bottle rocket construction and launch. Field Trip to Lowell Observatory Travis and Navajo-Hopi educator Alma Ruiz-Velasco coordinated a visit of their respective classes, both from Kaibeto Boarding School, to Lowell Observatory and showed them the historic 121-year old 24” Clark Refractor and the 13” Pluto Discovery Astrograph. They were able to see sunspots through the Observatory’s Coronado solar telescope and were shown the Cosmic Cart program, including demonstrations of surface conditions on different planets with liquid nitrogen, dry ice, and a vacuum chamber. Kelly Ferguson Kelly Ferguson partnered with Ms. Debra Chee and her 23 5th graders at Newcomb Elementary School, a 3.75-hr drive from Flagstaff. This was one of our partnerships testing the new curriculum unit. Unfortunately, there were several turns of fate that limited this partnership. The first was that the week of January 23-27 when Kelly went out for her partnership was the week of a major snowstorm in northern Arizona. The result was that Kelly was able to work with her class on only one day. Kelly felt that what time she had with the students went very well, “The kids really seemed to love the atmosphere in a bottle experiment and it got them thinking about their final project.” The second turn of events was that in early spring Ms. Chee left her position at the school in order to take care of her husband, and her substitute did not respond to attempts from Kelly to communicate. Therefore, the class also did not come to Lowell Observatory on their field trip. Todd Gonzales Todd Gonzales partnered with Verna Tallsalt at Jeehdeez’a Academy at Low Mountain, a 2.75- hr drive from Flagstaff. The class was a 4th and 5th grade combo of 24 students. Todd was piloting a new curriculum unit that blended culture with science. Todd designed the unit to be taught consecutively over 5 days while incorporating writing and reading standards with science, and Verna designed the Diné parts. Because of the consecutive nature of the teaching, Todd stayed in Chinle, 30 minutes away, and commuted everyday for a week. October 24th. Todd administered a pre-assessment to gauge the students’ background on the planets of the solar system. Afterward, the students began to work on foundational knowledge of “What a characteristic is” and “comparing and contrasting characteristics.” Students used National Parks brochures to get a sense of what natural characteristics bring people to visit such places. October 25th. Todd had the students begin reading as a group about the various characteristics of the planets, pausing every so often to explain words the students had not heard before. The students then began to make concept maps and Venn diagrams of the characteristics of Earth and Mars from what they had just read. October 26th. Todd led a demonstration of how to build a planet in a bottle. Todd added soil, plant material and a bit of water to a bottle. The last step was to add active yeast (a living thing) to see if it would flourish and produce CO2 gas as a result. The students were aware that the bottle contained Earth-like characteristics and that they needed to repeat the experiment with Mars-like characteristics. The students thought carefully and used their concept maps to come up with a Mars-like environment. They added dry dirt, fully sublimated dry ice, and UV from a flashlight. They added the yeast and made sure the bottle was somewhere cold. Mars bottle and UV light. October 27th. Todd led the students through the last planet in the unit, Venus. The students carefully crafted bottles that simulated the environment of Venus: hot, dry and acidic. Venus in a bottle on a heating pad. October 28th. Verna began instruction on cultural characteristics of the planets. This final day was reserved for students to begin work on their final project, a poster of one of the learned planets. This poster was to be like the National Park Brochures, but with a Diné and scientific flavor. Students would design this culturally relevant science poster and then explain to Lowell astronomers why their planet would be culturally important and the best one for colonization.