A Successful Integration of Astronomy into an Elementary School Curriculum
P.N. Romani (NASA - Goddard Space Flight Center), K. Hackett, T. Jackson, S. Melzer, S. Edwards, F. Moore (Glenarden Woods Elementary School)
Fifth and sixth grade students at Glenarden Woods Elementary Magnet
School for Talented and Gifted (TAG) Students, Glenarden, Maryland
studied Europe in the Medieval time period this year in a thematic
unit that involved language arts, social studies, and art. We used
this as a vehicle to incorporate math and science projects involving
astronomy into the curriculum. In this way, we could integrate
science into the thematic unit rather than having math and science be
divorced from what the students were doing in the other subject areas.
For the first project we studied the claims of astrology. This was
chosen because during the Medieval time period astronomy and astrology
were closely linked. We then took advantage of Comet Hale-Bopp to
compare what people in the Medieval time period thought/knew about
comets to what we believe now. For this unit we stretched the middle
ages to include a demonstration of how Tycho proved that the comet of
1577 was further from the Earth than the Moon. Lastly, we did a short
lesson plan on sundials. We will present details of the projects and
lessons learned.