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Curriculum Organizing Questions
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- What are stars?
- What is our closest star?
- What did people 100 years ago think about the
stars?
- How do different cultures explain the stars?
- What tools can we use to study the stars?
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Elaboration
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In earlier times, people everywhere were familiar with
stars. Our understanding of stars over time has changed with
the advent of new technology such as telescopes,
photography, computers, and space probes.
There are many different kinds of stars. Some are hot and
dense, burning their fuel at an incredible rate. Others are
cool, consuming fuel much more slowly. We see stars in their
infancy and stars growing old. And once in a great while, we
catch a glimpse of a star in its final cataclysmic hours,
wracked by a massive fatal explosion. All this variety of
stars tells a story: Stars live and die like everything
else.(Science Matters, pg. 134).
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Specific Ideas
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- Earlier people noted the patterns of stars in the
skies, the regularity of the motions of the stars and how
these motions related to the seasons. They used their
knowledge of stars to plan planting of crops, to navigate
boats and as the basis for many stories and myths.
(Benchmarks, pg. 61).
- Technology is essential to science for such purposes
as access to outer space and other remote locations,
sample collection and treatment, measurement, data
collection and storage, computation, and communication
(Benchmarks 3A).
- Telescopes reveal that there are many more stars in
the night sky than are evident to the unaided eye
(Benchmarks 10A).
- The stars differ from each other in size,
temperature, and age, but they appear to be made up of
the same elements found on earth and behave according to
the same physical principles (Benchmarks 4A, 9-12).
- Stars condensed by gravity out of clouds of molecules
of the lightestelements until nuclear fusion of the light
elements into heavier ones, began to occur. Fusion
released great amounts of energy over millions of years
(Benchmarks 4A, 9-12).
- Eventually, some stars exploded, producing clouds,
containing heavy elements from which other stars and
planets orbiting them could later condense. The process
of star formation and destruction continues....
(Benchmarks 4A, 9-12).
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Developmental & Instructional
Implications
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Many of these specific ideas are developmentally
inappropriate for 5-8 and should be taught at 9-12.
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Examples
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Have students identify and observe a specific
constellation and research myths about that
constellation.
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