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I remember when I was young, the excitement of seeing the total eclipse. I must have been maybe 2nd grade. My mom and dad bought me an eclipse shirt with the special glasses to look at the sun. The works! Back then I understood that the sun and moon were crossing paths. That was about it. After watching/reading more of the scipack, I know exactly how it works! I was able to use my prior knowledge and make connections to the new information that I was learning. I know that this is a story that I can share with my students as I am teaching my unit. I also enjoyed learning about the moon phases. It is very cool to see why the moon looks like it does depending on the part of the cycle it is in. I can share this information with my niece later. She is going to be 4 years old but she loves to observe the moon. I will definitely show her why it has it's shape when she gets old enough to understand.

SciPacks are full of information!! I think it is great that you can relate your personal experiences to what you are reading and enhance your knowledge further. Sharing it with students is such fun and they love to hear that you have experienced something yourself! And you are hitting right on the NGSS goals.

Arlene, That was some awesome suggestions that you had regarding assessments. I will definitely look into those possibilities. I was thinking about how the Curiosity rover on Mars took images of the lunar eclipse in September. If you follow the link to the image gallery below, you can look at images 18 and 19 to see Curiosity's pics. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/msl/multimedia/gallery-indexEvents.html As an extension of your students' understanding, you could make connections between eclipses viewed from Earth and those viewed from Mars.

Hello, all! This is such a fun thread. I'm a preservice teacher, so I have yet to teach any lessons aligned with NGSS. I love the idea of teaching content backed by real experiences, whether it's a natural phenomenon or something you witnessed firsthand. Especially when it's something you are passionate about, it makes the experience for your students that much more genuine when they can see that love for the topic in your eyes. I had a great teacher like this in middle school that got so fired up whenever she taught anatomy - I carry her spirit with me as I enter each classroom. 

When teaching Earth and Space Science in particular, it can be harder to transfer these real life examples into the classroom. Pictures and videos can suffice, but I think students would get much more out of the content if they could physically see it in real time! Do you have any suggestions or experience with trying to get your students to view these natural occurrences (eclipses, planets visible with the naked eye, etc.)? Thank you!