I’ve talked in previous posts about my hatred of lecturing. I end up doing all the work, while students sit passively. Sure, there are ways to make lectures more engaging. However, I discovered with a particularly challenging Astronomy class last year that lectures simply weren’t working. I stopped lecturing. I stopped pretty much all teacher-led instruction. What did I do instead? I created student-led, student-centered activities. I posted about student-centered instruction before, but now I want to share how I did it in my Astronomy class. Here are five high school Astronomy ideas, along with example lessons you can use in your Astronomy class.
Gallery Walks
Astronomy is definitely a very visually important subject. Looking at photographs is a major part of my class. However, instead of looking at pictures as a class and discussing them, break the discussions into smaller groups with a gallery walk. I call these Astronomy Art Galleries. They are one of my favorite and most engaging high school Astronomy ideas. I have done them virtually with Google Slides/PowerPoint and with physical pictures around the classroom.
Here are some easy topics to create your own Astronomy Art Gallery:
- Types of galaxies (shown above)
- Types of eclipses (check out my free Teachers Pay Teachers lesson plan!)
- Moons in the Solar System
- Nebulae and supernovae
- Planets
- Constellations
Station Rotations
Station rotations are not only engaging but a great way to cover a lot of content in a short amount of time. I tend to do four stations in a 50 minute class period (~7-8 minutes per station). There are eight total groups in my classroom, so I do mirrored stations.
I usually have at least one station where students are using a laptop or phone. Some types of stations you can include are:
- Watching a short video
- Playing a Quizlet game
- Coloring/labeling a diagram
- Using question dice
- Reviewing work with the teacher
- Reading a news article
- Completing practice questions/problems
I like to have one station with new information, one with review information, one with a video, and one with a group discussion. That’s not a perfect, works-in-every-lesson formula, but it is my skeleton I start with!
Questioning and Research
Students tend to be interested in Astronomy, even if they aren’t always engaged with every lesson. I like to give them the opportunity to ask questions. Then, we structure a research activity based on their research.
For this lesson on black holes, I asked students to write something they want to know about black holes. I used the Nearpod Collaborate tool so I could see who wrote what, but it was anonymous to other students. The next day, I brought out every book I own that mentions black holes, along with laptops. Students were tasked with trying to answer some of the questions they asked. The culminating assignment was to write a news article about black holes.
Simulations and Virtual Labs
Labs in Astronomy can be difficult, but there are many you can do. However, I often use simulations and virtual labs to do what we can’t in class. I’ve talked about PhET simulations many, many times, but a lot of teachers don’t know that they have a lot more than just Physics!
Some of the more Astronomy appropriate simulations PhET has are:
In addition to PhET, I have also used simulations from UNL, eduMedia, Stellarium, and Celestia.
News Articles
I feel like every single day I find a news article about something we are learning about in Astronomy. There is always new information and celestial events going on! I use news articles all the time in my classroom. This is another one of the most engaging high school Astronomy ideas!
For example, I found a news article about Mars One, and another describing why it won’t work. Students read those two articles and debated whether we should go to Mars. Here is the lesson plan for that activity.
Some other topics you could use news articles with are:
- Comparing types of supernovae
- Exoplanets
- Meteor showers and what causes them
- Types of eclipses
- Discoveries from probes such as Juno and New Horizons
I hope these ideas have inspired you to rethink your classroom!
