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Our middle school is going to have an Astronomy Night in conjunction with our high school sometime in the next couple of weeks. The president of an area astronomy club is bringing in his telescope and we will be using a Star Lab planetarium. I have some activities in mind for students and their parents to do. I was wondering if anyone out there has been involved in a similar venture and has any ideas of things we might include.
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Hi Tom,
I noticed that Maureen has already posted some great resources for you at the General Science & Teaching discussion thread under this same heading: Middle School Astronomy Night. I did not want the post to 'get lost' in cyberspace.
Also check out the discussion thread - Best Astronomy Lab Activities. There are some outstanding ideas embedded in the postings there, too.
Let us know all about your Astronomy Night. Will you have access to telescopes? I was able to take my middle school students to a local chapter meeting of the Astronomical Society a couple of different years. They hold a viewing for county residents each year that is open to the public. There were 8 different telescopes set up. You may have a similar organization near you.
Carolyn
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Thank you for the suggestions. The high school earth science teacher and I are working on this together. He has had the president of our local astronomical society bring his telescope in along with the couple he has. I'll add mine to it this year.
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Astronomy Nights are wonderful events! It sounds really great that you are going to have both middle and high school students working together for this event, along with amateur astronomers- It should be a fabulous event! I have run many astronomy night programs with middle and high school students, and I have found something that works very well to get students prepared for what they will see in the night sky- whether the skies behave or not!
Before the Astronomy Night program, we begin to focus on what will be in the night sky. We use a variety of sources-
- star wheels which we make and then use to figure out what constellations we should be able to see from our latitude (I'm attaching the file to make these.)
- Amazing Space has a monthly short video clip that shows some of the objets that will be visible each month in the night sky: http://amazing-space.stsci.edu/tonights_sky/
- Sky and Telescope Magazine's "This Week's Sky at a Glance": http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/ataglance
Students then select an object or constellation that should be visible in the night sky during our Astronomy night program, and they research it and find out things like how far away from Earth it is, what type of object it is (gas planet, binary star, etc...) and other neat facts about it. They make a few PowerPoint slides and then share them with our guests before we go outside to observe. If the weather doesn't permit actual observing, they present and we use planetarium software and these presentations to show what we could see if the skies were clear!
I would love to hear how your program goes- Enjoy!!
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Tom wrote, 'Our middle school is going to have an Astronomy Night in conjunction with our high school sometime in the next couple of weeks.'
Hi Tom,
I am curious how was your Astronomy Night? What activities did you do? Please share with the forum as I am sure there are others that would love to know what you did, what you would continue to do, and what you would change for your next astronomy night.
Thanks, Ruth
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Ruth asked, '
Hi Tom,
I am curious how was your Astronomy Night? What activities did you do?'
I, too, would love to hear how it went and what you did this year.
I noticed in the March 2011 Science Scope issue that the Scope on the Skies column was all about changing of the seasons. The gentleman who writes the column, Bob Riddle, has an astronomy website at www.currentsky.com
His Sky Watch and Planet Watch sections are updated each month.
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Thanks for asking. I meant to post this after the event but forgot.
Things went well. I'm pretty sure both of the people who showed up enjoyed it. We had extremely heavy rains that evening which cancelled out the telescope usage. I figured most people were interested in that part of the program and since that got washed out, they didn't come to the rest.
I had a Starlab set up to show people what the night skies would have looked like and what the mythological characters that went with the constellations were like. Outside the Starlab, I had three stations set up. One station had an activity where people could determine their age and weight on other locations in the solar system. Another station had a set of soda cans with sand in them representing how much a can of soda would weigh on other places. First, a person would determine how much a can should weigh at each place then they would use a triple beam balance to weigh each can and decide which can belonged where. The third station listed 15 items that survived a crash landing on the moon (along with the reader). The reader listed the items from 1 to 15 in order of importance for surviving a 200-mile trek across the moon's surface. Then they compared their list to NASA's list and kept score to see whether they would survive the trip.
It was discouraging that only 2 people came but I understand why. We'll try it again next year.
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Wow, Tom, it sounds like you had a wonderful evening planned. Mother Nature can sure put a damper on events like that. I know just setting up the StarLab is no quick, easy job. I have had as few as 4 or 5 and as many as 70 +. I have to admit that I offered extra credit when I had the large numbers show up. Thanks for sharing. I wish I could have come!
Carolyn
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Tom wrote, 'I had a Starlab set up to show people what the night skies would have looked like and what the mythological characters that went with the constellations were like. Outside the Starlab, I had three stations set up. One station had an activity where people could determine their age and weight on other locations in the solar system. Another station had a set of soda cans with sand in them representing how much a can of soda would weigh on other places. First, a person would determine how much a can should weigh at each place then they would use a triple beam balance to weigh each can and decide which can belonged where. The third station listed 15 items that survived a crash landing on the moon (along with the reader). The reader listed the items from 1 to 15 in order of importance for surviving a 200-mile trek across the moon's surface. Then they compared their list to NASA's list and kept score to see whether they would survive the trip.'
Hi Tom,
Thanks for posting about your astronomy night. I agree with Carolyn...it sounds as though you had a great event planned. You definitely have to do it again next year. Would you mind posting directions for the soda can station and the crash landing/200-mile trek? I know I would be interested in using them in my class and I think others would, too.
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Absolutely. Here they are. I've attached the Stranded on the Moon worksheet, answer key, and power point I use. On the student worksheet, the error points column is the difference between the two numbers in column 1 and 2. The total of the error points is what we use to determine if the student "survived" or not. I'm looking for the original for the Planetary Soda Pop activity. You need to make a set of cans that will weight the correct amounts (or close to them). The hard part is getting enough soda cans (or similar size) and putting enough sand in them to equal the proper weights. I generally use this as a lab activity (which means I had to make 12 sets of cans. You can't make one heavy enough for the sun or Jupiter, and you can't make one light enough for Pluto, but students usually get the idea. Sometimes, if I remember, I'll borrow a 25-lb. dumbbell to represent a can on the sun.
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Those are great, Tom. Thank you for sharing. I have used an activity similar to the Moon crash where a group has to try to survive a plane crash in the wilds of Alaska in freezing temperatures. I am going to try this one next time. Thank you!
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Hi Tom,
Thank you for posting the documents and thank you so much for the explanation.
Ruth
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