Using Space Science to Enrich Science Teaching

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Using Space Science to Enrich Science Teaching

• Dr. Art Hammon, Elementary/Secondary Education
  SpecialistEducation Office, Jet Propulsion
  Laboratory
• Pasadena, California

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Activity I. How can we measure the Solar System
using balloons and rice?

• Idea- use familiar objects to measure great
  distances
• A 20 cm diameter blue balloon represents Earth
• What diameter black balloon represents the Moon?
• What diameter orange balloon represents Mars?

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Activity I. (continued) Measure the solar system

• The Moon is how many diameters away?
• Mars is how many Earth
• diameters away?
• The star, Aldebaran
• (the One who follows) is how
• many Earth diameters away?
• If one Earth is represented by
• a grain of rice, what distance on Earth would
  be represented by the distance to Aldebaran?

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Activity I. (cont.)Compare your guesses to these
numbers.

• Earth balloon 20 cm, Moon balloon 5 cm,
  Mars balloon 10 cm.
• Distance from Earth to the Moon is 30 Earth
  diameters, Earth to Mars is 6,000 Earth diameters
  (average)
• Distance from Earth to the star Aldebaran is
  50,000,000,000 Earth diameters
• If one Earth one rice grain, then the scaled
  distance from Earth to Aldebaran in rice grain
  Earths, laid side-by-side starting in Casablanca,
  would go all the way around the Earth and
  continue on to California.

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Activity II. How can we help students learn
science?

• Science requires a student to use the senses of
  seeing, speaking-hearing and doing things.
• A simple 30 question survey of each students
  helps teachers to identify each students unique
  modality strength
• A science lesson may include a mixture of
  discussion, lecture, experiments, writing and
  making presentations to the class.

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Activity II (cont.) The 30 question survey

• Rate each statement by 1-5
• 1. That is NOT me! I never act like that.
• 2. I act like that from time-to-time.
• 3. I act like that half of the time.
• 4. I act like that often.
• 5. I act like that all the time.

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Activity II (cont.) A few of the 30 statements

• a. I like to walk around the classroom
• c. I like music very much
• f. I construct models of things
• g. I sing when I take a bath or work.
• i. When I ride in a bus, I look at the
  countryside.
• t. In groups, I rarely talk.
• dd. I do not like to listen to the teacher, I
  like to do things.

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Activity II (cont.) Tabulate results ( my
examples)

• I see I hear/speak I do/make things 
• d c ( 5) a ( 4)
• i ( 4) e b
• j g ( 4) f ( 2)
• l h k
• o m n
• r q p
• t ( 1) u s
• v w y
• x z cc
• bb aa dd ( 2)
• __________________________________(total each
  column)

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Activity II (cont.) A true story

• I was teaching students, age 12, about
  microscopes and parameciums (little animals)
• One student could not see them in the microscope
• I remembered his survey. He learned by
  talking-hearing. I asked him to say
  paramecium. He could not.
• I taught him to say paramecium and to explain
  to me what he thought about parameciums and
  microscopes.
• Now, he could then see the paramecium through the
  microscope
• He could not see what he could not pronounce.
• The aural-oral (speaking, hearing our own voice)
  connection is an important modality or way of
  learning for 1/3 of students

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Activity III. NASA websites help teach science

• http//www.jpl.nasa.gov/earth/index.cfm
• http//photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html
  
• http//quilt.jpl.nasa.gov/
• http//virtualfieldtrip.jpl.nasa.gov/smmk/to
  p
• http//spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/
  

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Activity IV. Science Research in the Classroom
with Mysterious Clouds of Jupiter

• The Great Red Spot on the planet
• Jupiter is a large hurricane (storm).
• Galileo saw in it using a telescope
• in the year 1610. It is still visible
• today. The NASA spacecraft named G
• Galileo took two pictures 9 hours
• apart. Can you see the change in the position of
  the clouds? The diameter is 20,000 km. How fast
  are the clouds moving? Can students calculate?

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Activity IV (cont.) What moves the clouds of
Jupiter? Watch fluid motion in a lake of milk!

• Dinner plate, milk, food coloring, liquid soap.
• Put milk in a plate,
• Put drops of food color on red
• milk as shown. green
  soap blue
• Put one drop of soap in
  yellow
• center as shown. Watch the
• motion of the food color in the milk.

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Activity IV (cont.) Can milk/food color be a
research project for students in classrooms?

• Scientists are not sure why the colors move in
  the milk. Your students can design experiments
  to test their ideas. Each group can have a
  different variable, for example
• Change the kind of milk (cream, powered)
• Change the shape of the pan
• Change the type of soap
• Change the temperature of the milk

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Activity IV (cont.) Reporting student research

• Encourage students to keep notebooks of their
  observations
• Allow each group to report their results and
  hypotheses to the class.
• Encourage the class to ask questions (politely)
• Encourage ideas for further research for example
  depth of milk, other liquids (vinegar, olive
  oil).

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Activity V. Catching Whispers from Space How
does NASA talk to spacecraft far away?

• Umbrella, beeping watch, plastic juice bottle
  ear antennas
• This NASA antenna dish talks to
• spacecraft using radio waves. It also
• receives messages from spacecraft.
• Radio signals disperse and become less powerful
• when they travel long
  distances.

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Activity V (cont.) Making ear antennas and
using umbrellas to model communication.

• Collect plastic juice bottles and cut as shown
• Set a watch to timer, 1 second,
• reset after finish. (your students can
• figure this out!)
• Do activity outside. It does not work inside a
  classroom.
• Allow students to hear the beeping watch.

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Activity V (cont.) Football field or school
playground

• 1. Instruct students to move away from the
  beeping watch until they can no longer hear it.
• 2. Put beeping watch in umbrella as shown below.
  Instruct students to move farther away until they
  can no longer hear the watch. Move watch from
  side-to-side,
• sometimes pointing away
• from the students.

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Activity V (cont.) Add the ear antennas!)

• Finally, when students can no longer hear the
  beeping watch, instruct students to put plastic
  ear antennas on their ears. Turn students so
  ear antennas faces the beeping watch. Allow
  students to move away until the limit of hearing
  is reached.
• This is the physics idea used in any satellite
  dish to capture and concentrate radio signals.

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Activity VI. Voyager, where are you? A
two-dimensional Solar System

• The NASA Voyager spacecraft is now over three
  times the distance to the planet Neptune. We
  talk with Voyager every day using antennas dish
  technology!
• A two-dimensional model of the Solar System
  allows students to walk the orbits of the
  planets.

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Activity VI (cont.) A school yard Solar
System.

• This view is how the school yard Solar System
  might appear from an airplane
• The inner planets,
• Mercury, Venus, Earth
• and Mars are very close
• to the Sun.
• This is what the Voyager
• spacecraft looks like

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Activity VI (cont.) Students become planets and
make a Solar System

• Give each selected student a picture of a planet.
  You can find and print these at
• http//photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/index.html
• Arrange the students by distance
• and angle using the chart and
• protractor on the next slide.
• Inner Planet angles
• http//www.heavens-above.com/ ----

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Activity VI (cont.) Data to make a Solar System
in your school yard.

• This data is used to place students
• The scale is

This scale is one meter on the school yard equals
125,000.000 kilometers in space.