University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

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Teacher's Toolkit - Grades 6-8

This toolkit is designed to help you make the most of your visit to the Manfred Olson Planetarium. Refer to the following list for quick and easy navigation:

Before Your Planetarium Visit

Please consider incorporating the questionnaires below into your lesson plan:

  • Pre-Visit Questionnaire (.doc) or (.pdf)
  • Post-Visit Questionnaire (.doc) or (.pdf)
  • Answers to Questionnaires (.doc) or (.pdf)

You could also compile a list of astronomical questions from your students and bring it with you and/or send it to Jean in advance. There is a question period during your visit at our facility where we could discuss these and other questions as time permits.

Discuss these questions with your students prior to your visit, to stimulate their curiosity:

  • What are constellations?
  • What is the Zodiac?
  • What causes day and night?
  • What causes seasons?
  • What causes an eclipse?
  • What causes the Moon's phases?
  • How can you tell a star from a planet?
  • What is retrograde motion?
  • What is a circumpolar star?
  • How did the solar system form? How do we know?
  • What do geocentric and heliocentric mean?
  • What are the differences between Terrestrial and Jovian planets?
  • What celestial bodies make up the universe?
  • What is the origin of the universe? How do we know?
  • What did Ptolemy, Copernicus, and Galileo do for astronomy?

During Your Planetarium Visit

Please arrive 10-15 minutes before your scheduled visit. Locate the restrooms in the Physics Building lobby and give students the opportunity to use them. The theater doors lock after the show starts and it will be disturbing to allow visitors back into the Planetarium.

Please remind your students to be quiet in the hallways. UWM classes may be in session.

Theater Presentation

The students will have the opportunity to:

  • Look at the sky on the evening of the Planetarium visit
  • Point to stars, planets and the Moon if visible from Milwaukee
  • Enjoy a beautiful dark sky away from city lights (for this age group, the dark sky portion is short)
  • Move their bodies to model the Earth's rotation as the cause for night and day.
  • Recognize geometric shapes in the constellations
  • Realize that the constellations are the basis for many cultural stories
  • Tour the solar system and look at images of main objects in the solar system
  • See how the sky changes during the course of the night
  • Ask an astronomer questions

Supplementary Activities for an Additional Fee (Optional Hands-On Activities)

At your option (Additional $30-$60 depending on group size), the following activities offered during your visit:

After Your Planetarium Visit

Remind the students how they responded to the Pre-Visit Questionnaire at the top of this page, and invite them to discuss:

  • How their thoughts have changed
  • The reasoning behind their thoughts
  • What they have learned

Use the Post-Visit Questionnaire as a model for additional discussion. Use their responses to correct misconceptions that students may have developed - through further questioning, class participation, and other textbook activities.

Assessment

To gauge students' comprehension, you may invite them to:

  • Complete the Post-Visit Quiz
  • Share their planetarium experiences verbally
  • Write journals about their planetarium experience.
  • Research and write a report on space exploration or other celestial phenomena
  • Write a science fiction story that includes celestial phenomena

Learning Activities

Listed below are the major themes for grades 6-8. You might find information for a topic under several themes. Also refer to the corresponding Grades 6-8 Notes & Discussion Topics page.

Theme One: Astronomical (Celestial) Objects in the Day and Night Sky

1. The Sun is the closest star to us

Basic information, activities and videos on the Sun

Images concerning parts of the Sun:

2. Moon is the Earth's only natural satellite

3. Stars are big balls of gas that make their own light

4. Planets (the Earth is a planet) go around stars and in our solar system they have to be big enough to form a spherical shape rather than a potato shape

5. Meteors or shooting stars or falling stars are brief luminous trails observed when a small piece of rock from space enters the Earth's upper atmosphere

6. A constellation in modern astronomy is one of the 88 designated areas in the sky that often get their names from patterns of bright stars in that area of the sky

7. Galaxies are large groups of stars (typically 100 billion) held together by their mutual gravitational attraction

Theme Two: The Solar System

1. Overview of solar system: it has 1 star, 8 planets, and many small objects in it

  • Activities:
    • Solar System in Your Pocket (Shows the relative distances between the Sun and the planets)
    • Students work in groups and try to recall all the information they can about the Sun and the planets; they write one fact/property/idea on a post it and put it on the appropriate poster; each group is assigned a poster to organize its facts in correct, incorrect, uncertain statements for their assigned poster. For older students, they can discuss how they would check the uncertain statements. Also, we connected these properties to how the solar system formed.

The Sun is located at the center of our solar system.

2. Characteristics/properties of different planets. How do we know the physical properties of a planet?

Information on the planets:

3. Special objects such as Asteroids, Comets, Kuiper Belt objects, Oort Cloud, Dwarf Planets (Such as Pluto) (Grade 5)

4. Formation of the Solar System

Theme Three: Earth/Moon/Sun Interactions

1. Rotation of the earth: Evidence is day and night

2. Rotation of the Earth: Evidence are Seasonal Constellations

3. Gravity

4. Tides

5. Eclipses

6. Phases of the Moon

7. Seasons

8. Historical perspective: geocentric/heliocentric

9. Aurora Borealis

10. Solar flares

11. Climate, weather, etc.

Theme Four: Constellations

1. Modern 88 official constellations, Seasonal versus Circumpolar constellations, and some basic constellations

2. Sky maps and stargazing

  • Video: Star Map
  • Activity: Sky Maps (Look at the top of the page for the free downloads)

Theme Five: Life of a Star

1. How do stars live?

2. Stellar corpses

3. HR diagram

Theme Six: Forces and Physical Properties

1. Gravity

2. Inertia

Theme Seven: Space Exploration

Theme Eight: History of NASA

Theme Nine: Big Bang Theory and Cosmology

Theme Ten: Exoplanets

Theme Eleven: Extraterrestrial Intelligence

Readings: Grades 6-8

  • What the Sun Sees, What the Moon Sees, Nancy Tafuri
  • The Magic School Bus Lost in the Solar System, Joanna Cole
  • The Magic School Bus Space Explorers, Joanna Cole
  • The Solar System, Cathy Imhoff
  • Follow the Drinking Gourd, Jeanette Winter
  • The Usbourne Internet-Linked Book of Astronomy and Space, Lisa Miles and Alastair Smith
  • Black Holes and Other Space Phenomena, Young Observer
  • Nature Activities Star Gazer, Ben Morgan
  • 1000 Facts About Space, Pam Beasant

Teacher Feedback

“Jean speaks very clearly and engages all the kids. She also “saves their dignity” when their answers to her questions are wrong. Very informative and obvious she loves her work.” –Mrs. Schulz, Grade 6, Wheatland Center

“First time here for me. I teach English and Reading. I have minimal science background. It was fascinating! I learned a lot from you and was impressed with Dr. Hunter and Dr. Stephanie as well!” –Bart Wepking, Grade 6, Wheatland Center

“Nice mix of audio, visual, and kinesthetic activities.” –S. Danks, Grade 6, Fritsche

“Great, informative presentation and super management of the group. Thank you!” –Jenny Statza, Grade 7, Lincoln Intermediate

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the National Science Foundation for its support of the Research Experience for Teachers (RET) program at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The teachers who contributed resources for the UWM Planetarium webpage—Ms. Jeanine Gelhaus (Medford Middle School), Ms. Karen Green (Milwaukee Public Schools High School Science Teaching Specialist), and Mr. McDonald (Alexander Mitchell School)—were all recipients of a RET grant at UWM (2011, 2007, 2008). For more information on this grant opportunity and how to apply see http://www4.uwm.edu/ret/.

 
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