1. Teacher Guide
This lesson is designed to teach kids to ask a critical thinking question that you can’t just put into a search box to solve. To do that, we encourage them with smaller questions that search can help them answer. Make sure that you read the notes for each slide: they not only give you teaching tips but also provide answers and hints so you can help the kids if they are having trouble.
Remember, you can always send feedback to the Bing in the Classroom team at You can learn more about the program at bing.com/classroom and follow the daily lessons on our Partners In Learning site.
Want to extend today’s lesson? Consider using Skype in the Classroom to arrange for your class to chat with another class in today’s location. And if you are using Windows 8, you can also use the Bing apps to learn more about this location and topic; the Travel and News apps in particular make great teaching tools.
Alice Keeler is a mother of 5 and a teacher in Fresno, California. She has her B.A in Mathematics, M.S. in Educational Media Design and Technology and is currently working on a doctorate in Educational Technology with an emphasis in games and simulations. EdTech speaker, blogger, and presenter. Founder of coffeecue, a 1 hour conference event for educators. New Media Consortium Horizon report advisory panel member. High school math teacher for 14 years. Currently teaching pre-service teachers curriculum, instruction and technology at California State University Fresno. Teaches online for Fresno Pacific University in the Masters in Educational Technology. Passionate that kids are not failures, researches gamification in education to increase student motivation.
This lesson is designed to teach the Common Core State Standard: English Language Arts.
CCSS.MATH.CONTENT.HSN.Q.A.1 Use units as a way to understand problems and to guide the solution of multi-step problems; choose and interpret units consistently in formulas; choose and interpret the scale and the origin in graphs and data displays.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects to answer a question (including a self-generated question) or solve a problem; narrow or broaden the inquiry when appropriate; synthesize multiple sources on the subject, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development, organization, and style are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience.

2. How are observatories such as the Fabra Observatory important for scientific discovery?
© SIME/eStock Photo
Having this up as kids come in is a great settle down activity. You can start class by asking them for thoughts about the picture or about ideas on how they could solve the question of the day.

3. How are observatories such as the Fabra Observatory important for scientific discovery?
From the slopes of Tibidabo mountain, we see the Fabra Observatory, still high up enough in the hills to avoid light pollution from bustling Barcelona below. What isn’t seen here is the variety of entertainments offered at the top of Tibidabo, including an amusement park and an ornate Catholic church called Temple de Sagrat Cor.
Depending on time, you can either have students read this silently to themselves, have one of them read out loud, or read it out loud yourself.

4. How are observatories such as the Fabra Observatory important for scientific discovery?1
Web Search
What is an observatory? 2
What are some of the observations made at the Fabra Observatory? 3
What units do scientists use when making celestial observations from the Fabra Observatory? 4
Video Search
Find a video that explains some of the work conducted at the Fabra Observatory. 5
What are challenges to making celestial observations from an observatory?
There are a couple of ways to use this slide, depending on how much technology you have in your classroom. You can have students find answers on their own, divide them into teams to have them do all the questions competitively, or have each team find the answer to a different question and then come back together. If you’re doing teams, it is often wise to assign them roles (one person typing, one person who is in charge of sharing back the answer, etc.)

5. How are observatories such as the Fabra Observatory important for scientific discovery?5
Minutes
You can adjust this based on how much time you want to give kids. If a group isn’t able to answer in 5 minutes, you can give them the opportunity to update at the end of class or extend time.

6. How are observatories such as the Fabra Observatory important for scientific discovery?1
Web Search
What is an observatory? 2
What are some of the observations made at the Fabra Observatory? 3
What units do scientists use when making celestial observations from the Fabra Observatory? 4
Video Search
Find a video that explains some of the work conducted at the Fabra Observatory. 5
What are challenges to making celestial observations from an observatory?
You can ask the students verbally or let one of them come up and insert the answer or show how they got it. This way, you also have a record that you can keep as a class and share with parents, others.

7. How are observatories such as the Fabra Observatory important for scientific discovery?1
Web Search
What is an observatory?
(Possible Search Queries: “fabra observatory”, “fabra observatory observations”)
Sources:
Wikipedia:
Fabra:
Ajuntament de Barcelona:
In addition to observing space, the Fabra observatory makes observations about the weather.

8. How are observatories such as the Fabra Observatory important for scientific discovery?2
Web Search
What are some of the observations made at the Fabra Observatory?
(Possible Search Queries: “fabra observatory”, “fabra observatory observations”)
Sources:
Wikipedia:
Fabra:
Ajuntament de Barcelona:
Sopars al Observatori:
Harvard:
Fabra - ROA telescope at Montsec:
In addition to observing space the Fabra observatory makes observations about the weather. The moon, stars and planets. Near earth objects such as comets and asteroids. Double stars are one type of celestial observation being studied and recorded. The observatory also makes seismic observations.

9. How are observatories such as the Fabra Observatory important for scientific discovery?3
Web Search
What units do scientists use when making celestial observations from the Fabra Observatory?
(Possible Search Queries: “celestial scientific measurements”, “observatory measurements”)
Sources:
Wikipedia:
University of Virginia:
Science Daily:
Iowa State University:
Bright Hub:
University of Colorado Boulder:
Measuring celestial bodies in miles results in very large and unmanageable numbers for scientists. To measure the distance from the earth to certain stars scientists may use the unit measure of “parsecs.” The Hubble telescope allows scientists to measure in mega parsecs.
The AU (Astronomical unit) is about 93 miles.

10. How are observatories such as the Fabra Observatory important for scientific discovery?4
Video Search
Find a video that explains some of the work conducted at the Fabra Observatory.
(Possible Search Queries: “Fabra Observatory”, “fabra observatory telescope”, “fabra observatory science”, “Fabra science”)
Sources:

11. How are observatories such as the Fabra Observatory important for scientific discovery?5
Web Search
What are challenges to making celestial observations from an observatory?
(Possible Search Queries: “Parallax”, “celestial scientific measurements”)
Sources:
University of Virginia:
University of Colorado Boulder:
The position of the earth in relation to a celestial body changes. This can provide challenges to measuring distances in astronomy.

12. How are observatories such as the Fabra Observatory important for scientific discovery?
This slide is a chance to summarize the information from the previous slides to build your final answer to the question.