| Event Description: |
Astronomy is a favorite subject of many primary students from our school. We are going to learn about the Solar System and the Univers (sky, stars, astronaut, satellite, planets, orbits, space food, clothes);
to be creative and explore shape, sound, size and distance of the planets and integrate the knowledge of different areas;
to improve the ability to use various ICT tools and cooperate in team work;
to learn about the space environment/UNIVERS and robotisc;
to explore abilities by making experiments and comparing experiences and learning strategies;
SCHOOL ACTIVITIES to excite children about math and science:
• Watching films and PPT presentations about SPACE, lectures/articles about space– 4th Oct- Science/Literature hours
• Studying UNIVERS, use computers program to paint planets & rockets, painting robots, drawing Paxi,sun,moon,stars,sky – 5thOct- ICT&Art hours
• Working on experiments on time measurement, the Earth's rotation and orbit, time, calendar, star mapping and comets, create model of the Solar System,crafts -”Sundial”,“Space shuttle”,”Play Dough Planets”,"Model rocket launch" by students - 6th-7th Oct –Math&Geography&Tehnologics hours
• Prepairing team posters 8th-9th–weekend
• WSW2016 Exibition in our school-Exhibit of space-related art,maps,moon rocks or meteorites,photographs,stamps,space memorabilia,or student crafts/posters – 10th Oct
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| Report on the Results: |
Througt this activities our primary stundents will be familiar with UNIVERS, enthusiastics and more interested to discover space life using STEM activities
”We participated at ESTEC OPEN DAYS 2016 in Noordwijk, the Netherland” – 1-2 October ; meeting with Franco Ongaro, Director of Technical and Quality Management (D/TEC) and Head of ESTEC; meeting and getting autographs from German ESA astronaut Thomas Reiter, the Agency's former Director of Human Spaceflight, and from Hans Schlegel and Franco Malerba, ESA astronauts.
”Introduce the topic to students and works on experiments” 3-10 October
”Studying about space” - Students watched scientific videos and presentations in the computers lab, studied about UNIVERSE. The Universe is everything we can touch, feel, sense, measure or detect. It includes living things, planets, stars, galaxies, dust clouds, light, and even time. Before the birth of the Universe, time, space and matter did not exist.
”Paxi”. Paxi is ESA's education mascot. It is an explorer from another planet. It s parked his spaceship in orbit and parachuted down to Earth to meet children. His home planet orbits is Sun. Our students draw PAXI.
”Explore SPACE” – Our students learned more about the Story of the Universe, The Sun , Planets and moons , Stars and galaxies, Comets and meteors, Astronauts using posters, books, flyers , different materials, and site: https://www.esa.int/esaKIDSen/fun.html
”The raindbow”
The sun gives off a spectrum of different light. Pupils saw these different types of light when they looked at a rainbow. Reds, yellows, blues and purples are clear and easy to spot but the sun also gives off light that’s invisible. All light is made up of a mixture of the colours of the rainbow. You can split these colours using a CD which will reflect different colours of light in different directions. If you look at different different parts of the CD the light will have bent at different angles so you see different colours.
”Explore the Planets and The Earth's rotation and orbit” - time, calendar, create model of the Solar System. Pupils learned about planets and Solar System. The Solar System is made up of the Sun and all of the smaller objects that move around it. Apart from the Sun, the largest members of the Solar System are the eight major planets.Each of the planets has its own unique character, from the acid rains of Venus to the lightning storms on Jupiter. One thing common to almost all of the planets is an atmosphere. Mercury is the single one planet which has no atmosphere. The rest have gas layers spanning from tens of miles to hundreds of thousands of miles thick. Are all the planets the same size? Is the Moon much smaller than all the planets? Is the Moon a planet? Do other planets have moons?
”Searching for Life on Mars”
The activity have been grouped to encourage students to think about the characteristics of life and about the possibility of looking for life on Mars. Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It orbits the Sun at an average distance of 228 million km, half as far again as the Earth, so human visitors would find it very cold. Although summers near the equator can be quite warm, the average temperature is 63 degrees Celsius below zero - similar to winters in Antarctica.Students draw their interpretations of the creatures and compare them to what they already know about life on Mars today. It’s Alive! Students designed a plant or animal life form that might survive on Mars. ESA's Aurora programme is planning to send robots to find out more. ExoMars, due for launch in 2018, is the first of the Aurora missions. It includes an orbiter and a lander that will deliver a large rover to the surface of Mars.
”Play Dough Planets”- Purpose: To demonstrate the size
(volume) differences between Earth,Earth’s Moon and Mars through a hands-on activity. Students made a play dough ball about the size of a marble. Teacher explained that this ball is the Moon. How many “Moons” it would take to make a ball the size of the Mars or Earth? Students combined 8 of the Moon-size balls to make one “Mars” ball. The students had a Moon and a Mars and after that they combined 50 Moon-size balls, to make “Earth.”
”Would you like to be an astronaut?” Pupils draw astronauts. You do not have to be superman or superwoman to fly in space. Many men and women, from many different countries, have become astronauts. ESA, for example, now has 14 astronauts from eight different countries.
”The satellites” – Our students learn about them. In astronomy, a satellite is an object that orbits (goes around) a planet. There are several hundred natural satellites, or moons, in our Solar System. Thousands of artificial (human-made) satellites have also been launched since 1957. These have many different uses, including taking pictures of the Sun, Earth, and other planets, and looking deep into space at black holes, and distant stars and galaxies. There are also communications satellites, weather satellites, and the International Space Station.
” Launch a rocket” – Our pupils made their own rockets and launch them. Rockets are used to launch satellites and Space Shuttles into space. Their powerful engines allow spacecraft to be blasted into space at incredible speeds, putting them into the correct orbit. Europe's most important rocket family is the Ariane.
”The Sundial & Making Shadows” - mark the straw's shadow falls and repeat, use the shadow of the straw to try telling the time in others days. A sundial is a device to measure time by the sun. On a properly constructed sundial, the shadow of the Sun moves equal distances each hour. As the day progresses, the Sun appears to follow a path from its rising in the east to its setting in the west. The Sun appears to move across the sky due to the rotation of the Earth about its axis. We explored the path of the Sun in the sky, and how we might use this information to determine the current time of day.People have been using Sun shadows and sundials to tell time by the sun for thousands of years
”The Study of Mars and Earth” - similarities and differences
Of all the planets in the Solar System, Mars is the most like Earth. Though it currently has no liquid water flowing on the surface, there is evidence that suggests Mars was once warmer and wetter like the Earth. Geologic features revealed by orbiting robotic spacecraft, and secrets uncovered in Martian rocks by robotic rovers on the ground show that long ago Mars and Earth could have looked very much alike. Students received a Martian Planet and Earth Planet. It was their jobs to observe and determine all the scientific information they can. They listed anything that is similar or different between the two planets and described the color, size, position on orbit and described in words both the Earth and Mars image.
”Learn about ROSETTA” – Our pupils create crafts. ESA’s incredible Rosetta mission has come to an exciting end with a controlled crash onto the comet it had been studying! Rosetta was launched in 2004, and has travelled nearly 8 billion kilometres, including whizzing around the Earth three times, Mars once, and zipping by two asteroids! It became the first spacecraft to ever orbit a comet and in November 2014 it successfully deployed a lander, called Philae, onto the comet’s surface.
Pupils prepared the cosmic corner in the school.
We shared materials on the following eTwinning project: Eyes on the sky,feet on the ground! in partnershep with schools from Ucraine and Greece.
https://twinspace.etwinning.net/19838/pages/page/152133
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