TPACK Questions

Content: Through Stellarium, we were able to create a lesson plan about both geometric figures and constellations . We were able to cover part of standard 4 of the 6th grade core curriculum. Students will understand the scale of size, distance between objects, movement, and apparent motion (due to Earth’s rotation) of objects in the universe and how cultures have understood, related to and used these objects in the night sky. Students would have to look at the night sky in Stellarium to find constellations that resembled geometric shapes or had geometric shapes within them. They would also become more familiar with constellations and their names.   

Pedagogy: Learning about the stars could be difficult to do during school because it would still be day time and you would not be able to see anything. Stellarium is a great tool to use to be a more effective teacher. You would not only be reading out definitions of things or reading out names, instead you would be using Stellarium to help your students literally see what they are learning about.  

  

Technology: The technology we used for this activity was the program Stellarium. The students would be able to see features of the sky through a computer program. Stellarium is a useful program because it helps students get a real life image of things in the sky.