The Universe

There are the materials I used to teach two lessons on the universe.

The first lesson was about the size of the universe and the relative sizes of its contents. It had two objectives:
1. Giving kids a sense of the enormous distance between objects in space
2. Helping them understand what a light year is and why we use it to measure things in space

I started with the video, from 0:00 to 5:14. Then I used the slideshow, which has two slides to give a chance to talk about the size of the universe and the concept of light years. Then, there are 13 questions loosely arranged from easy to difficult. Since this is a public Prezi, these can be easily edited.

Bill Nye video at Dailymotion

Space Trivia on Prezi

The second lesson was about the types of objects in space: nebula, stars, etc. It also had two objectives:
1. Understanding the types of objects in space and clearing up common points of confusion (ex: difference between comets and asteroids)
2. Helping them appreciate the incredible visual appeal of space

I started with the video of the planets of the Solar System singing. StoryBots has several other videos on objects in the Solar System as well. Then I gave the presentation on different objects in space, which I put together using mostly pictures from NASA's website. The last slide includes directions for an art project and an example I made. The art project is to design a travel poster for an object or location in space. I picked the Pillars of Creation, a part of the Eagle nebula, and made a quick example in Photoshop. I put the kids into groups of 3-4 and gave them each a couple space books I got from the library. It would work fine as an individual project too.

I played the music from Spotify while they were working.

"We are the Planets" by StoryBots on YouTube

The Universe and Everything in It on Prezi

Ambient Space Music by John Serrie on Spotify

Notes: Kids were particularly interested in black holes and nebulae. They had lots of questions about these things and loved looking at pictures of them. Most students chose those for their travel posts so if you provide books, make sure there are plenty on those two subjects.

The biggest stumbling blocks for many kids seemed to be understanding the difference between a galaxy and the universe, and understanding that light years measure distance, not time.