Teacher Notes for Jupiter and the Asteroids!
1) Introduction and Philosophy
These teacher notes describe our first efforts at trying to clarify what we are trying to accomplish and how we can accomplish teaching students about an important phenomenon in our solar system, and give them a beautiful vision and experiential learning of these effects.
Engagement of students is predicated on some of the learnings from Modeling Instruction (click here) https://www.modelinginstruction.org/)
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2) Learning Goals
Our goal is to help students see the beauty of movement and dance, see how people around the world are interested in sharing such knowledge, help students create their own art and movement activity, understand more about our solar system, understand asteroids, and also understanding how the mass of Jupiter is so great, it seems to keep asteroids away from Earth, and protect us.
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3) Progression through Unit
Day 1:
Jupiter Protects the Earth from Asteroids!
A Classroom Activity
Day 1:Outline:
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History of Universe Guided Activity to Enable Children to Touch (carefully!) some matter made in stars! (8 minutes) -- Presentatioin of zoom a brief history of hte Universe and origin in matter. Capstone realization for students is to realize they are all made from matter made in stars!
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Explanation of Asteroids -- size, what they are , where they live (10 mins) -- Asteroid Explanation click here -- explanatioin in power point of what an asteroid is, sizes, location in the solar system, etc.
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Jupiter Intro (5 mins) -- click here to view movie
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Students break into groups of three (15 mins) -- Carl asks students what could happen if Jupiter lets an asteroid through? Each group elects a spokesperson to speak for the group. Groups contribute their thoughts to develop a classroom consensus.
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Show Movie of Dinosaurs and Asteroid (6 mins) -- Click Here to open Asteroid Impact Movie! -- Fun movie!
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Explanation to children (1 minute) --this will not happen to them...
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Students watch "Jupiter" dance section of Astronomy High (3 minutes) -- Click here to watch Jupiter Dance Activity! This is the wonderful dance done by Myrta's ballet that shows Jupiter keeping asteroids out of the solar system.
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In discussion in groups of 3 (10 minutes), students identify what Jupiter was doing. Then, whole classroom consensus is formed about what Jupiter was doing in Dance!
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3) Progression through Unit
Day 2:Outline:
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mins = 15 -- Let us make many objects in the Universe -- Stars, galaxies, asteroids, comets, planets, nebulae -- children are given paper, crayons, and scissors and make objects they choose. We need at least 20 asteroids and 1 Jupiter 1 Earth`!
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20 mins -Students undertake Asteroid crash simulation -- no touching, no throwing!
First time in history this has been done! Carl relies on Shirley to make this right. We need one Jupiter in middle, and 10 asteroids circling the solar system, and the earth. Every once in a while, an asteroid swerves into near Earth, and Jupiter says don't go there! -
10 mins -- Play Asteroid Impact Game! 10 mins --Carl leads this web activity. Students get to help choose characteristics of the asteroid -- its material, its size. Carl tries to get them to see a relationship between size of asteroid and size of impact crater! The Dinosaur asteroid was 10 m across.
https://simulator.down2earth.eu/planet.html?lang=en-US
4. 5 mins -Fly Me to the Moon -- click here
them through, and engage their thoughts and dialog (7 minutes)
c) Asteroid overview --a couple of ppts by Carl (3 minutes)
4) Making Sure