To Teach The Stars Network - Classroom Astronomer Magazine

Table of Contents

Six Steps To Build Up Student STEMina - If at first you don’t succeed, you’re doing well! Design Buggies for Mars as an elementary (or higher!) science activity and give students mental strength. Using this six-step engineering design pedagogy, which includes testing and improving failed designs, this nine-project plan, NASA's BEST, bridges astronomy, engineering, and critical thinking skills

What Would Galileo Do? A Curriculum Approach - Design a course around Galileo’s discoveries, and his creation of the scientific method.

The Classroom Tablet, or How I Learned to Love Apple in My Astronomy Class - What can you do as a teacher in the classroom with an Apple iPad? For one thing, you can recover from a lack of an interactive Smart Board and do live, graphic demonstrations. Here are some teaching tips for the teacher, on whiteboarding, Moon phasing, 3-D views of the universe, planets and sky, and even some physics, on a tablet device.

Columns:

Astronomy of the Northern Sky - The Brightnesses of Stars - The apparent brightness, or magnitude, of a star is much more precise today than when Hipparchus created the system. How well can you judge brightness? This issue's column looks at the system, showing you stars of exactly whole magnitudes, stars with differences of one or more magnitudes, and tenths of a magnitude (how close a difference can YOU detect?), atmospheric extinction and light pollution measures, and finally measuring the magnitudes of stars that vary, with star charts and a test photo to practice on.

Astronomical Teachniques - The Jig-sawed H-R Diagram; What Kinds of Facts Are There Really?

Photons Focused On - Stonehenge, A Teaching Tool?l - A photo story showing highlights of Stonehenge and a proposed exercise, setting up the Station Stones in your schoolyard to monitor the northernmost and southernmost Sun and Moon rising points.

and

Teachers' Spring Planning Sky Calendar {click here! }

NEXT ISSUE!

Astronomy at 35,000 feet--Flying the Infrared Telescope Jet SOFIA

What's the Correct Order for Teaching Astronomy Topics

and more....

Plus our regular columns:

Astronomy of the North Sky - Coordinates X. Y and Z

The Summer Sky Planning Calendar

for including sky events in your lesson plans.

Astronomical Teachniques

Shows Going in East, West and North Stages

Things heating up in the near-June skies!

Early in the evening, after sunset but before twilight ends, seek three planets in the western twilit skies. Jupiter sets at the end of twilight and by the end of the fortnight, you'll find Jupiter, Venus and Mercury all within a 3 degree circle. All three will fit in a binocular field of view! Venus and Mercury are emerging from the solar glare and Jupiter, exiting stage right, gives us one more performance as it waves farewell to the evening sky.

Meanwhile, the ringed planet Saturn is already up in the eastern sky as night begins and stays visible until until the dawn. This is the time to bring out the telescopes and show the neighborhood (or school) kids this impressive world! The rings are tilted 18 degrees and so really give the impression of the floating ball within a ring. You can watch the moon Titan easily in small telescopes.

Comet PanSTARRS passes nearly over Gamma Cephei, a binary system (not split in telescopes) a mere 45 light years away, still much farther than PanSTARRS! The closest passage is May 13th. The comet is fading rapidly now. Gamma Cephei is a future Pole star, in a few thousand years. Meanwhile, the comet is heading towards the current Polestar, Polaris, which it will pass in about four weeks.

(Next update ~May 24)

Date	Event	Moon	Mercury	Venus	Mars	Jupiter	Saturn
May 12 Su
13	Sun's creeping up on Jupiter, leaves Aries for Taurus.
14	Venus sets now one hour (or more) after the Sun
15
16
17	Jupiter sets at the end of twilight		.				\
18

Date	Event	Moon	Mercury	Venus	Mars	Jupiter	Saturn
19 Su	Mercury brightest tonight
20
21
22	Spica barely missed by passing Moon
23	Mercury by Venus tonight - 25th
24
25	Moon undergoes the smallest possible penumbral eclipse just after midnight...don't bother! ------ Mercury 1.4 degrees North of Venus, and Jupiter's close by too!

Icon	Meaning	Icon	Meaning	Icon	Meaning
	Moon visible for early evening studies		Full Moon Night		Moon visible during school hours for study in class
	Visible in evening twilight setting at least 45 minutes after sunset		Becomes visible, as it gets dark, sets later in the evening		Visible during the evening hours, sets before dawn
	Rises or is already up during the evening, visible the rest of the night		Visible in pre-dawn skies until sunrise.		Visible only in dawn, rising at least 45 minutes before sunrise

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Two Week Calendar for Planning Sky Lessons

Shows Going in East, West and North Stages