Tech Savy Teacher: Move over Bill Nye!!!!1

We have been using technology in our classroom at Pretend Elementary School in the Fictional School District. Our students have really enjoyed the Computer program Stellarium, which is a fantastic program that helps students understand the movement of stars, planets and the relationship of celestial bodies to the earth.

Part one of our three part unit was to help the students familiarize themselves with the program Stellarium, and fine tune their web based research skills. They were to find three constellations of my choice, and identify them in Stellarium. They were then to find background information about what people and culture named this constellation and how it may or may not have been used for navigation at sea.


Ursa Major, "The Big Dipper"


Gemini, "The Twins"

Orion


Part two on another day, i gave the kids following clue. "On the Australian and New Zealand Flag there is a constellation. Find the name of that constellation, and change your location on Stellarium to one where you could see this at night." This required the kids to understand that this particular constellation is not visible in the Northern Hemisphere, and you must be South of the Equator to view.


The Southern Cross

Part three required the kids to find Ursa Minor in the Utah night sky. They were to center the constellation on the screen.

The North Star is in the center of the screen.

I then had the kids "speed up time" on Stellarium so that the circumpolar stars around the North Star were moving, while the North Star remained fixed. I had them hypothesis why this was. The kids had a hard time fully understanding what exactly what was going on, and led to a very beneficial class discussion about Polaris.

The Students here at Pretend Elementary are really enjoying these technologies!!