Not a Bad Way to Spend the Winter.

We finished our unit on Astronomy for the 7th and 8th grade yesterday. I think it was a successful unit. We had some fun and learned a lot along the way.

We learned about the seasons, eclipses and tides. We examined every major member of the solar system from the Sun to Pluto. We learned about robotic exploration of the solar system and manned spaceflight. 

We did a day on the human cost of exploration and talked about whether NASA ‘s spending is too much, too little or just right. We looked at NASA’s job posting board to see what kinds of jobs are in demand at NASA.

We talked about the universe, galaxies, black holes, neutron stars and quasars.

Finally we stretched our minds around the big bang theory, relativity, and quantum mechanics. I especially enjoyed the puzzled looks on the faces of my students as they tried to understand the implications of relativity and the big bang theory.

Along the way, we did rocket launches in the playground, looked for spots on the surface of the sun, and did weekly observations of the night sky.

We visited an observatory where we viewed Jupiter and it’s four largest moons, saw a supernova and peered into the heart of the Andromeda Galaxy.

Not a bad way to spend the winter.