Exploring the Night Sky

This article on observing the night sky has a nice correlation with other subject areas such as math, art, and social studies. It gives an excellent overview of why and how the Mayans accur... See More

This article on observing the night sky has a nice correlation with other subject areas such as math, art, and social studies. It gives an excellent overview of why and how the Mayans accurately studies the stars and planets. It also describes in detail how to do a star party at a school.

Observing the Sky

This article presents a good historical background of how the Mayan’s tracked the movement of celestial bodies allowing them to order their lives. The observations allowed them to determine... See More

This article presents a good historical background of how the Mayan’s tracked the movement of celestial bodies allowing them to order their lives. The observations allowed them to determine harvest, rains, drought, floods, religious feasts, royal birthdays and building of structures. Within the article, the author provides several activities that allow the students to make connections to the constellations. The “Star Finder” that can be reproduced and used by students. I did this activity with my middle school students. I had to enlarge the pattern to fit on a single 8 ½ x 11 piece of tag board to make it sturdy enough to use. It is important students cut out the window with accuracy, otherwise the wheel doesn’t turn very well. Students are able to use the wheel with success provided they can see the sky without a lot of interference from city lights or clouds. http://www.archaeoastronomie.de/codex/cdstart.htm shows the Dresden Codex in a color format the students found interesting, but need some instruction as to what they are seeing. http://terpconnect.umd.edu/~tlaloc/archastro/cfaar_as.html, is a sophisticated site on what archaeoastronomy is. http://www.skyandtelescope.com/community/organizations is a website attached to Sky and Telescope magazine. To fully utilize the site, you need to register, which is free. The “Interactive Sky Chart “and “This Week’s Sky at a Glance” was particularly useful to my middle school students, especially when teamed up with their Star Finders.