1. Patterns in the Sky: Astronomy for Young Students
February 13, 2016
Julia Plummer
Chrysta Ghent
Abha Vaishampayan

2. What grade level do you teach?

3. How comfortable are you teaching astronomy to K-4th grade students?
Not comfortable > Very comfortable
First grade student’s drawings of the phases of the Moon

4. Goal for the workshop
Engage in three celestial motion investigations to delve into pedagogy which supports children’s understanding of both the patterns of celestial motion phenomena and the methods of investigating these phenomena.
Claims-evidence-reasoning framework
Use these three investigations to look for common themes in investigating celestial motion phenomena

5. Connecting to the standards
How will these investigations connect to state and national standards?
Investigation 1: Day/night cycle
Investigation 2: Phases of the moon
Investigation 3: Seasonal constellations

6. Materials we will provide on the website
Lesson plans and supporting materials for the three investigations
Standards table
Articles from Science & Children describing some of the pedagogy from the workshop
Formative assessment tools

7. Day & Night: Engaging in scientific practices
What was the phenomena we just investigated?
How did we engage in scientific practices in this investigation? (In other words, what did we do that was like what scientists do when they conduct investigations?)

8. Engaging in scientific practices
How were you as learners engaged in a process of constructing an explanation based by making claims, based on evidence, and providing reasoning?
How do we help children make claims-evidence-reasoning explanations in astronomy if they are not familiar with the terms claims and evidence and reasoning?
(4 min 10 sec - 8min)
Password: DiscoverySpace

9. Supporting children’s understanding of astronomy
How was this lesson designed to support you as learners in making sense of and remember the three-dimensional motions in the Sun’s apparent and Earth’s actual motions?

10. Phases of the Moon What was the phenomena we just investigated?
How did we engage in scientific practices in this investigation? (In other words, what did we do that was like what scientists do when they conduct investigations?)

11. Phases of the Moon Apparent patterns - appropriate for lower-grades
Explaining the pattern - upper elementary/middle grade standard
Discuss common challenges students have when learning this content area.

12. Allow for multiple opportunities to test out the model
Next step in the lesson - have children use the Moon phase model to make further predictions to test their understanding:
(8 min 40 sec)
Password: DiscoverySpace

13. Applications
How could you use the ideas and lessons introduced so far in your teaching?
What additional questions do you have?

14. Wrap-up discussion (After Seasonal Constellations)
What are some common themes across these investigations in terms of?
Content?
Science practices?
Pedagogical supports for student learning?

15. Wrap-up discussion (After Seasonal Constellations)
What are some common themes across these investigations in terms of?
Content?
Repeating observational patterns; Changes over different periods of time; Explanations involve changing from an Earth-based to a space-based perspective of motion
Science practices?
Making observations over time to develop a claim; Using models to explain Earth-based observations
Pedagogical supports for student learning?
Stellarium to visually support learning
Kinesthetically engage with the concepts
Connecting the process to the content