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3 Grade Astronomy Lessons
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Short Description: Astronomy Lessons. The following is a set of suggested activities for a third grade curriculum unit on the. Earth/Sun/Moon system. ...
Content Inside: 3rd Grade Astronomy Lessons The following is a set of suggested activities for a third grade curriculum unit on the Earth/Sun/Moon system. The goal is to provide students with an understanding of the motions of the three objects in the system and the way in which they determine the periodic changes we observe. In particular, students should develop an understanding of the way the Earth's daily rotation determines the cycle of light and dark that we call day and night; the way the Moon's motion about Earth determines the monthly cycle of lunar phases; and the way the Earth's orbital motion around the Sun determines the annual cycle of seasons. We also discuss how eclipses solar as well as lunar come about. One important aspect of these notes is that we have made every effort to structure them so that students have an opportunity to observe in Nature as many of the phenomena under investigation as is possible. The challenge here is that some of these, like seasonal changes, can only be observed by making observations in different seasons requiring that the teaching of this unit be distributed over essentially the entire school year. The activities described here are an attempt to combine the temporal requirements of observation with a sound pedagogical development of the material. A suggested timeline below demonstrates how these activities can be timed for optimal success. Additional materials, still under development, include a unit on light, shadows, and images. Some early versions of some parts of this can be found at http://www.cgtp.duke.edu/~plesser/outreachstuff/ . Because light and shadow play such an important role in understanding the phenomena covered here, we recommend in fact that the light unit be taught before bulk of the Earth/Sun/Moon unit, as reflected in the timeline. These cyclic changes are of fundamental importance to our lives, and their relation to celestial goings-on has been the subject of intense scrutiny scientific, religious, and literary in all cultures since the dawn of civilization. The literary products of our fascination with celestial motions and their meaning form an ideal literacy connection to this science unit. In an appendix we have compiled some stories from various traditions that we found particularly enriching. These are at best representative, certainly not exhaustive. In teaching students these subjects it is natural that many questions will arise that are not addressed here, but would be natural extensions of the material included here. Examples of this are the nature and structure of the Sun and the Moon, their history and origin, the story of human exploration of space in general and the Moon in particular, etc. We have included some fragments of such information in the Teacher Background sections of the units but teachers should expect many relevant questions not answered here to come up.
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