By jack northrup on 11/28/2008 8:51 AM

The last few nights have been great for observing the night sky.  The air has been dry and pretty cloud free so last night I went out with my binoculars only,  I didn't want to work the telescope after the Thanksgiving dinner.  I made some notes of very interesting and easy to find objects to find just with the binoculars.  Today after the leftover turkey sandwiches I will type up the list so if you want to go out and make some observations too.  Also at the bottom of this page is a colorful picture, it is an astronomy weather map.  It tells me what times will be best for observing and includes helpful bits of information about the atmospheric conditions. 

By jack northrup on 11/24/2008 2:45 PM

King's 5th grade classes are participating in our annual planetcast as part of their astronomy unit.  They are currently on track to be student-experts on a planet in the solar system.  They will produce a "newscast" for their planet, looking at the news, weather and sports that could be found on that planet.

Planets that the students can use in the project include:

Mercury   Venus   Mars   Ceres   Jupiter   Saturn   Uranus   Neptune   Pluto   Eris   Sedna

I will be posting the projects rubric online so students can self evaluate prior to the turn in date.

By jack northrup on 11/14/2008 10:16 AM

Astronomy students are working on creating the Astronomy Language foldable.

The Languages that are included are:

• Chinese
• Norse
• Arabic
• Rapa Nui
• Latin
• Greek

By jack northrup on 11/5/2008 11:51 AM

Astronomy students are making traditional Norse tombstones, these posters are written in norse and include when the person was born, died, who they married, and the names/dates of the children.  Pictures of student projects will be coming soon.

By jack northrup on 11/4/2008 1:39 PM

I am working on a new show for Mr. Gregorio (5th grade Social Studies) on the use of the sky/sun/moon as a navigation tool.  It is done in fulldome video using Stellarium.  So far Leif Errickson has made it about half way to Greenland.

By jack northrup on 10/20/2008 10:07 AM

Well today we started a new quarter, astronomy students are starting the multicultural astronomy lessons.  The students are also starting to work in small groups, pairs/trios/quartets/quints/hextuplets.  Part of the working in groups is that the students will be doing some leveled activities.

Level 1 - students work by themselves

Level 2 - students will work in pairs

Level 3 - students work in trios

Level 4 - students work in quartets - worth 80 points.

This is a little bit of a divergance from the traditional lessons, but we will still do the same cultural groups.

By jack northrup on 10/14/2008 6:02 PM

We had the fall rocket launch today.  We were able to dodge the rain and get about 40 minutes of still air to launch in.  The student rockets were great.  More to come.

By jack northrup on 10/8/2008 7:20 PM

Today was the trip to the Qwest Center for the Strategic Space Conference.  It was very interesting conference, our guides were great and we got to meet some very informative professionals.  As soon as I get images cleared from the trip I will be posting them here.

By jack northrup on 10/3/2008 2:13 PM

The students have built rockets out of straws for the air-rocket launcher and sent them skyward in the cafetorium.  This was to have the students start to see velocity has a direction.
Now the students are finishing the rockets we nicknamed the phase 2.  This rocket carries a golfball as a payload, one of the mission objectives of the rocket is to carry the golfball from launch to landing.  This means the golfball has to be secured within the body of the rocket so it will not escape.

Pictures from the launch event will be posted soon.

The students will be taking time and altitude measurements that we will use to calculate the pull of gravity on our rocket and kinematics of it's flight.

 

By jack northrup on 9/29/2008 8:07 AM

Do you believe that the success of the Chinese Space program will change Mission budget for NASA?  If so, where do you think we need to go next with the space program? If not, do you think China will beat the USA back to the Moon?