The activity I will be doing will be using Stellarium to understand the rotation of the earth and our view of the sky as we move. The CONTENT I will be focusing on is 3rd grade science, Standard 1, Objective 2d: Use a model to demonstrate why it seems to a person on Earth that the sun, planets, and stars appear to move across the sky. The PEDAGOGY I will use will be:
1) Ask the question "Why does it seem to a person on earth that the sun, planets, and starts appear to move across the sky?" Have the students discuss in groups their ideas.
2) The students will then do a simulation using Stellarium. They will conduct a simple investigation and gather data to discover about the appearance of the sky during the rotation of the earth. On Stellarium, students will select a point on earth they would like to observe the sky from. Using the features on Stellarium, they will select under "sky viewing options" the equatorial grid. They will choose one constellation they want to observe, the moon, a planet, and the sun. Using the fast forward feature, students will record the position in the sky each of these items at a certain time of day/night over the period of a month.
3) Using the data they have collected, students will construct and explanation for the question they first discussed.
4) The students will then discuss investigations made and develop explanations using their observations.
The technology being used works very well with the pedagogy because it allows the students to question, gather data, and come to an understanding with the data they collect.
The REPRESENTATION of the content produced by the technology is multimodel in that it uses visual and textual technology to teach the subject. It will help the students better understand why the sun, planets, and stars appear to move across the sky because they are actually able to view the movement of the sky using Stellarium.
