High School Lessons
Student Teaching Summary
Week 1 (1/29 - 2/2):
Introducing Gas Giants: Jupiter & Saturn
Week 2 (2/5 - 2/9):
Ending Gas Giants + Quiz Evaluation
Week 3 (2/12 - 2/16):
Project Artifact: Solar System Tourist Guide
Week 4 (2/19 - 2/23):
Scientific Accuracies in Media: "The Martian"
Week 5 (2/26 - 3/1):
A Lab Introducing Spectroscopes
Week 6 (3/4 - 3/8):
Week 7 (3/18 - 3/22):
Week 8 (3/25 - 3/29):
The Sun: Composition & Structure
Week 9 (4/1 - 4/5):
Sun: Review, Quiz, then Stellar Cycle
Week 10 (4/8 - 4/12):
Solar Eclipse Recap + Project on Stars:
From Birth to 'Death'
Week 11 (4/15 - 4/19):
Exploring Star Classification + Early Astronomers in Stellar Astronomy Fields
Week 12 (4/22 - 4/26):
Worksheets
These are lessons I create or have altered in some way. Feel free to access and use them!
(If underlined, it is most likely a hyperlink to the supporting documents.)
If you have any feedback, let me know.
Students will discover Jupiter, its natural satellites, and ongoing scientific analysis by robotic spacecraft to understand this Gas Giant, with a heavy focus on NASA simulation website.
Students will discover Saturn, its natural satellites, and ongoing scientific analysis by robotic spacecraft to understand this Gas Giant's moons using NASA simulation.
Students investigate Uranus and Neptune, with the limited data analysis. JWST images of Uranus engage students, while instructors should let students elaborate on their findings as a way to compare/contrast Gas Giant planets, terrestrial planets, and some of their major moons.
Students will become travel agents as they take us on a journey to 1 of their selected destinations through a multi-media project outlet. As they already investigated various planets, moons, and spacecrafts, students use persuasive language to entice customers (the class) to take a journey with them. This is part of their unit wrap-up to allow students to elaborate on their findings, and ultimately realize scientists and employees also work to persuade scientific research to the public.
Students build their own spectroscope tube. This helps present spectrometry as an engage/explore activity before diving into the E&M unit. (Introduces the visible light spectrum, so you can connect astronomer's data collection efforts to find out what a star, planet, or galaxy are made of.)
Students go to numbered stations to look at glass spectral tubes that have different elements or compounds. Using a hand-held spectroscope instrument, students match their observations with the provided reference guides that display the spectral lines of different elements. (Make sure to do at least 1 demonstration with the entire class. The correct answer won't be retrieved after just one attempt, trial and error will be key!)
In astronomy it rarely feels like it, but remind your students of the real world. Choose a movie and depict the accuracies or inaccuracies. Incorporate how scientific communities work as a team, the science or math accuracies, and how media is relevant in bringing certain STEM topics to life! (I chose The Martian, and showed the movie.) Use this type of lesson when you know many students will be absent or just as your usual lesson plan, as it covers crucial information that makes you a facilitator of media students may not receive at home. Summarized Doc + Videos
How would the slides look? (Check them out.)
Change up the way you do notes and cover the composition of our Sun. This helps students write down relevant facts and anything else they find, while also being able to identify parts of the Sun. (Introduces stars in an in-depth view.)
How would it look? Click here.
Be sure to do a pre-check and see what students already know. (Example)
Students showcase their creative skills by doing a mini poster on the sequence of events for low-mass and high-mass stars. These sequences of events have been simplified to attain an overview of stellar evolution, rather than an in-depth approach. However, the rubric can be changed.
This project aims for students to identify examples for each stage in the sequence to recreate an illustration including the name of a nebula, red giant star, blackhole, and other stages. Therefore, students can identify a star's stage just by looking at the image. This also ensures that students comprehend that science is always involved when creating the pretty images seen. (The teacher can provide a moment to recall spectra, before going in-depth with the HR Diagram unit and elaborating on how students think the images are created.)