1. Stars, Fire, and Candy By: Jessica West By: Jessica West

2. Engage To engage students learning, the teacher will do a demo. This demo involves lighting a candle and allowing the students to observe its flame. While students are observing, the teacher will ask the students questions such as… What colors do you see in the flame? Which colors of the flame do you think are hotter? Which colors of the flame do you think are colder? Doing this allows students to be introduced to the concept of heat and color being directly related when it comes to stars.

3. Explore During this part of the lesson, students will explore the different types of stars while also exploring the science concepts involved in making rock candy. Around the room there will be 4 different stations. They are as follows: YellowRedBlueWhite At each of the stations students will make a different colored rock candy star based on the picture and description of the star given. While doing this they will also be writing down on a worksheet what the star looks like, its temperature, and an example of that star. After making the rock candy they will have to wait 3 or 4 days for the crystals to form. As they form the teacher will discuss why the crystals form.

4. Rock Candy Continued... Station 1: Yellow (SUN) At this station there will be pictures of yellow stars followed by a description. For example: Our own Sun is classified as a yellow dwarf star. It has a surface temperature of about 5,800 Kelvin causing most of the light we see to be yellow. Station 2: Red (Garnet Sidus & alpha Tauri) Again there will be pictures of red stars. Example: The most common stars in the Universe are the tiny red dwarf stars. These stars have a surface temperature of less than 3,500 Kelvin, and this is why they appear red to our eyes. This color is also seen in red giant stars which are larger in size and they are still colder. Station 3: Blue (Sirius & Vega) At this station there will be pictures of blue stars. Example: The hottest stars are the blue stars. These start at temperatures of about 10,000 Kelvin, and the biggest, hottest blue supergiants can be more than 40,000 Kelvin. In fact, there’s so much energy coming off the surface of a blue star that many could actually be classified as ultraviolet stars, it’s just that our eyes can’t see that high into the spectrum. Station 4: White (Sirius B & IK Pegasi B) At this station there will be a picture of a white stars. Example: A white dwarf is a small, very dense, hot star. When a star has just become a white dwarf, it is hotter than 100,000 K (about 180,000 F). It then gradually cools then after many billions of years, it can become cooler than the Sun (which is about 6,000 K).A white dwarf is a small, very dense, hot star. When a star has just become a white dwarf, it is hotter than 100,000 K (about 180,000 F). It then gradually cools then after many billions of years, it can become cooler than the Sun (which is about 6,000 K).

5. The Science Behind Rock Candy Dissolving the sugar in the hot solution (water) and then allowing it to cool creates what's called a supersaturated solution When this happens, the solution is unstable, meaning that it has more sugar in it than can actually stay in the liquid. Molecule by molecule, sugar crystals in the solution will attach themselves to the sugary string the crystals you put on the string when you soaked it essentially serve as starting points and are known as seed crystals. As time goes by, the water evaporates very slowly from the solution, so sugar molecules continue to come out of the remaining solution and move onto the seed crystals on the string. Sugar molecules have a particular shape; they don't, for example, look like snow or diamond crystals. After millions of them layer onto the string, their shape will take a certain form. Even with the sugar growing at the rate of millions of molecules per hour, it'll take a day for your crystals to be visible and a week for them to use up all the sugar they can from the solution. In the end, the finished piece of rock candy will be made of about a quadrillion (1,000,000,000,000,000) molecules attached to the string.

6. Explain After their worksheets are completed, students will come together as a whole while the teacher explains the Hertzsprung-Russel Diagram and how stars are classified. The teacher will talk about which class stars belong to based on their temperature and color. Teaching Tips… How are the stars classified? Stars are actually classified based on their color, temperature, luminosity, spectral type, and evolutionary stage. As the diagram shows Blue stars are the hottest, followed by white, yellow, orange, and then red. Luminosity (L) is a measure of how many times brighter or dimmer a star is compared with the sun. As seen from the diagram white dwarfs have the lowest luminosity and blue giants and red super-giants have the highest luminosity. Stars are not always one type. They move through a life cycle.

7. Evaluate Students will be evaluated through group work. Each group will be given a set of pictures of stars. Students will have to put the stars in order of increasing temperature based on what they have learned from the lesson. The rubric will be as follows: 3 = Correct 2 = Partially Correct 1 =Incorrect

8. Extend During this part of the lesson, students will be given an article about a specific star. Students will write up a one paragraph summary describing the star. The summary will include… Stars NameStars Name ColorColor TemperatureTemperature Interesting Fact Interesting Fact The rubric for the paragraph is as follows: Excellent Good + X Needs Improvement Resources for articles: 1. http://www.sciencenews forkids.org/articles/2009 0401/Feature1.asp http://www.sciencenews forkids.org/articles/2009 0401/Feature1.asp http://www.sciencenews forkids.org/articles/2009 0401/Feature1.asp 2. http://kids.yahoo.com/s cience/space/article/sta r http://kids.yahoo.com/s cience/space/article/sta r http://kids.yahoo.com/s cience/space/article/sta r

9. Resources Star Information: http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/astronomy/stars/startypes.sh tml Rock candy: http://candy.about.com/od/hardcandyrecipes/r/rock_candy.htm Flame Activity http://www.eduref.org/Virtual/Lessons/Science/Space_Sciences/SPA0007. html Color of a star song: http://www.kidsknowit.com/educational-songs/play-educational- song.php?song=The%20Color%20of%20A%20Star http://www.kidsknowit.com/educational-songs/play-educational- song.php?song=The%20Color%20of%20A%20Star

10. Reflections Overall the lesson went great. More time would have been great as usual. The students seemed really excited about the lesson and loved the rock candy! Taking the time to prepare the lesson and then actually do it in the classroom was a great experience and really helped me see what I needed to fix. Reflectio ns presented this lesson at Pine Island Elementary School on March 23 rd In Mrs. Schultz’s 3 rd grade classroom and finished it on March 26 th. I presented this lesson at Pine Island Elementary School on March 23 rd In Mrs. Schultz’s 3 rd grade classroom and finished it on March 26 th. Overall the lesson went great. We had time for everything except for the extend part of my lesson. The rock candy was messy but the kids had a lot of fun making it. It was great to see all the work I put into my lesson really come alive and to see the kids so interested in it. We started the rock candy on Monday and ate it on Thursday after discussing what had happened.

11. Did You Know… About 90 percent of all stars are main sequence stars and most of these are small red stars. In the constellation Scorpius is the supergiant star Anatres which is 300 times the suns diameter and 11,000 times brighter than the sun. This is the 16 th brightest star in the sky. Stars evolve over time..