1. Discuss ways that different cultures use the stars.
Star Maps
Objectives:
Explain what a constellation is and discuss some ideas related to star patterns.
Discuss ways that different cultures use the stars.
Use a star chart to create a planisphere. Use a planisphere to determine the location of stars and constellations.

2. Constellations A grouping of stars.
Ursa Major (big bear- can you see the Big Dipper?)

3. Constellations
People have looked at the sky for thousands of years. When ancient people looked up, they saw the same thing you see today: beautiful stars. They saw patterns in the stars. Today, we call these patterns "constellations.“
A constellation is a region of stars in the night sky.

4. Orion (Hunter or Canoe)

5. A Simple Made-Up Constellation
Pretend you are looking at stars in the sky. What do you see?

6. What did you see???
This activity shows what ancient people did when they saw the stars. You can think of yourself as a member of an ancient culture. When you looked at the sky and saw those stars, you may have seen a saw a dove or a horse.
Or maybe you saw something different???

7. Constellations There are over 80 known constellations.
What constellations do you know???

8. Orion
One famous constellation is Orion the Hunter. You can see Orion in the Northern Hemisphere in fall and winter.

9. Stories
When the ancient Greeks saw Orion, the shape reminded them of a hunter. The bright stars in the four corners were his shoulders and feet. The three horizontal stars in the middle were his belt. The three vertical stars below were his sword.
The Greeks told a story about Orion. He was a brave but proud hunter who was killed by a scorpion. When he died, the gods put him in the sky to remember him.

10. Draco

11. Story
In both one myth, Draco the legendary dragon that guarded the golden apples in the garden of the Hesperides. Heracles was required to steal these apples as the eleventh of his twelve labors. He managed this feat by putting the dragon to sleep using music. Later, the goddess Hera placed the dragon into the sky and it became the constellation Draco.

12. Your Turn
On the back of the grid provided create your own constellation.
On the grid draw the stars that form your constellation and connect them with a faint pencil line.
On lined paper create a short myth or story about your constellation.

13. Star Map
Map of the night sky that shows the positions of the stars in a particular part of the sky.
Can be used for navigation. (still used by sailors)
All stars in the Northern Hemisphere appear to revolve around Polaris (the North Star).
The stars close to Polaris are visible all year.
Example: planisphere displays date and time to locate stars, constellations and galaxies.

14. Ecliptic
The path across the sky celestial objects appear to follow over the year.

15. Planisphere

16. Calendars
Many First Nations groups noted that that the appearance of certain patterns marked the changing of the seasons.
Ancient Egyptian farmers noticed that the annual flooding of the Nile River, used for crop irrigation would occur every 365 days when the Sun passed through the constellation Leo.
Others lined up stones with the Sun’s path in the sky and were able to track the start and end of each season.

17. Soltices and Equinoxes
Ancient Mayans built a giant pyramid that is aligned to the Sun’s movement in the sky. At sunset on the spring and fall equinoxes, a corner of the structure casts a shadow that resembles a plumed snake slithering down the pyramid steps.

18. Stonehenge Circular arrangement of giant stones and boulders.
At sunrise on the summer solstice every year, the Sun’s first rays strike a particular stone.

19. Other Views
Some West Coast Natives tell of the stars being formed when the sleeping Sun’s mouth spewed sparks through the smoke hole of it house. As the Sun slept, its brother, the Moon, rose in the east.
In other First Nations legends, lunar eclipses are the result of monsters in the sky swallowing the Moon.

20. Azimuth
The horizontal angular distance from north measured eastward along the horizon. (North 0º, East 90º, etc.)

21. Altitude
The angular height an object appears above the horizon, measured vertically.

22. Hand Angles
Finger 1º
Fist 10º
Outstretched hand 20º

23. Homework Planisphere construction
Using the planisphere, answer the worksheet questions.