Astronomy in Real Time- Science in the News

     While studying Earth and the atmosphere we researched popular press articles on astronomy. It was interesting looking through articles without abstracts, data pages, and words longer than supercalifragilisticexpialidocious. These articles were catchy, to the point, interesting, informative, and were on or around an 8th grade reading level. I thought it was an interesting project to create a scrapbook of articles because it made researching current events and information pertaining to astronomy engaging and interactive when it could have been a laborious task. Below is the link to my glogster which includes my scrapbook of engaging, interesting, and astronomy filled articles!
LINK TO GLOG

     After the creation of our glogsters (which each held a student's 10 articles) we got in groups of three in class and then discussed our articles and what were common themes among these. We picked out about thirty words or concepts that were prevalent in all of the articles and made a collaboration for a visual representation of astronomy in popular press.

     After this creation we went to work creating a timeline for these terms which proved to be important and significant in the field of astronomy. This task was easier said than done as terms such as sun, stars, and milky way date back to before human existence. Other terms, such as astronomers and spacecraft had more interesting stories behind their concepts and names. Just by researching these "top 30" terms, so to say, I learned a great deal about what is at the heart of astronomy and how it has evolved. 

Link to Timeline

     In reflection, if I were to do this activity again, I would have liked to choose a topic within astronomy and do the terms and timeline relevant to that topic. For example, the first trip to the moon as a topic and then choose terms and a timeline for the history of planning, building, and then actually going to the moon. 

     This structure for an activity was really engaging and also informative. The hands on creation of objects appeals to many types of learners and the way students are creating their own knowledge will make it more memorable. This activity would be an engaging and helpful way to begin a unit. It quickly and effectively gives every student background knowledge and a working knowledge on a subject or topic. 

     The articles chosen were mostly chosen because the topic or title caught my eye. While reading though they were mostly about the stars and planets in the sky changing, moving, and creating phenomenon! This all fit into our classroom discussions of keeping on the cutting edge, how teachers can keep up to date on astronomy information, and in general how we, as teachers, will keep ourselves informed on new findings. Through these articles I learned new breakthroughs in astronomy and also followed through on the discussed ideals of us teachers keeping our knowledge current. I would use news articles in teaching science for this exact reason- they are catchy, short, to the point, and give a lot of information about a broad topic through several more specific articles. In teaching I would have students browse articles on a topic and then write down everything they learn that they feel is significant. It is amazing how much is learned through just 30 minutes of browsing articles and the knowledge is mostly current and cutting edge.