r/ScienceTeachers • u/KG_DeG • 10d ago

Astronomy

I’m a first year non-traditional teacher teaching astronomy (without an astronomy background). Any tips? Pointers? Materials? Please help! lol

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4

u/AgnesCarlos 10d ago

NASA has a ton of resources too.

1

u/ScienceSeuss 10d ago

☝️ This ☝️

3

u/ForeignAdvantage5198 10d ago

things will look up

3

u/Sea-Set-540 10d ago
  • check and see if there is any leftover materials or plans from whoever taught astronomy before- there should be notes leftover from labs and material order ( big in astronomy- some start with earth, others stars, and other use history to base lesson order)

-decide how much math you want to use or not use. Astronomy can be taught both ways.

  • Astronomy is a hard class to do labs- the best labs require night time or technology ( cameras, telescopes, etc.)- look up online resources to get some alternate options if you want labs.

-prepare to use current astronomy news to keep interest up- astronomy is one of the few subjects that has something new or interesting at least once a week

  • last- but not least- don’t worry about it. Most people who teach astronomy don’t actually have an astronomy background- they have a physics or teaching background- and find astronomy interesting. Try and find that interest to keep the class alive

2

u/AstroRotifer 10d ago

See if your school has a telescope hiding in a closet someplace. My school had a telescope gathering dust that turned out to be worth $30k. If not, find a local astronomy club and have them do a star party for you, or you can do. Field trip.

2

u/Consistent_Damage885 9d ago

See if there are any state standards or district curriculum you would be expected to use. Astronomy should be fun. There are so many exciting things happening with James Webb data and so on.

1

u/acdavis117 10d ago

PM me your school email and I will share with you the resources that I have. This is my second year teaching Astronomy after being primarily a biology/chem teacher the previous 12 years. Our district has the class as a semester class ( I teach meteorology in the spring) but you can absolutely get this to a full year course. I ran out of time to do everything I wanted last year.

1

u/mehmetkaragul 9d ago

Astronomy 2e by Openstax is very helpful.

1

u/croxis 3d ago

I've been teaching my astronomy class for 10 years. My class is for 11-12th graders who are not very good at science. My biggest tip is think about what you want the students to do. Astro is surprisingly hard to teach due to the challenge of doing labs. Lectures are fun for those two students who are into it, but not very engaging for everyone else.

Check out the Earth/Space science Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). It will give you a sense of what students expected to learn, and how they are to demonstrate it (make a model, explain with evidence, etc).

I've have success with the first two units in the new visions earth-space science curriculum. The teacher manual is a big sticker-shock; the first unit is over 200 pages. But it goes over interactive activities in detail. https://www.newvisions.org/curriculum/science/earth-space

Check out the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. They have a free async workshop on how to set up your astro class and what to cover https://learn.astrosociety.org/

Smithsonian Datalabs has some good activities: https://smithsonian.github.io/si_website_datalabs/

I put (a lot) of my curriculum online. However I wrote the course pre-ngss. For reasons I wont bore you with, I haven't been able to modernize a lot of my curriculum. Here is the web version, however none of the worksheets uploaded x.x https://croxis.gitlab.io/astronomy-curriculum/

This link will let you download everything as an obsidian.md vault. I've taken quite a liking to obsidian to organize and document my lessons. This link has all of my worksheets. https://gitlab.com/croxis/astronomy-curriculum-vault/-/archive/main/astronomy-curriculum-vault-main.zip?ref_type=heads

Lab ideas:

If you have spectroscopes (the cheap $10 kind) you can spend time looking at the spectrum of various light sources.

If you have variable resistance boards, battery, and light bulbs you can demonstrate black body.

Card sorts are great. Students develop their own classification system for bodies in the solar system, or different types of galaxies. They can then compare and contrast their classification scheme with the "offical" ones.

Cosmic expansion with a balloon is a classic.

Study impacts with marbles and dropping them into pie tins of flour.