Sunday, April 21, 2013



Cosmology and such

My most recent lesson covered a few very interesting concepts that I often consider quite regularly. The lesson was on cosmology. I think that most elementary educators would think me to be a bit ambitious, even grandiose to expect a lesson on cosmology to be successfully implemented in the elementary classroom. My strategies, however, allow basically any person regardless of their skill level to learn something cool as the material is presented.

My only goal when teaching science is to make the students think about something that they have not thought of before. I think that by doing this, and exploring the physical world through concrete representations of abstract concepts we become acquainted with what it is to be a scientist. My background in multi-age and Montessori education has shown me the power of letting students become teachers. Through the process of teaching something to someone else we become masters of that subject or concept.

I started the lesson by asking the students what the most astounding thing they knew was. I got some pretty good responses:  "Humans are so small compared to the size of the universe, though we think that we are at the center," one student answered. Another replied, quite humorously that "no matter where you are in the world, you can buy a sausage mcmuffin... even when you are at sea." The reply I liked the most reminded me of my days in philosophy class: "The only thing that I can truly know is that I exist."

After the students answered this question I showed them a video of the famous cosmologist Neil DeGrasse Tyson answering the same question. I have added this video to the blog, I highly recommend watching it. What amazes me about essential questions is that no matter who you ask them to, whether it be a world famous cosmologist, or an eight year old the answer will most likely be quite thought provoking. Humans are amazing.

I only had 30 min to cover a lesson on cosmology. This is no easy task, though as I mentioned earlier I adapted a very sneaky strategy. For starters my lesson plan contained around 10 common core standards. Did I fulfill all of them?... Hell no. The idea here is to create so many options for learning that no matter what happens, no matter which direction the student goes, they will have covered at least one or two standards. They will also do so on their own terms which allows more room for enduring understandings to be established. It is a way to individualize instruction while also fulfilling standards. This is a strategy that would make the educator weak, lazy, and under prepared. I find such suppositions to be nebulous, glib, and without any real backing.

Each student was given a subject within the subject of cosmology to learn and explore independently. I included a few TED ED lessons on the blog that exemplify the content each student would explore. When we all finished the students taught each other what they learned. I facilitated the discussion to clear up misconceptions, answer questions, and build upon what was covered. The ace up my sleeve was scientific notation. Every subtopic passively taught the scale of objects through scientific notation. If all else failed (which I was sure would not), the students could show that they could scale objects using scientific notation.

A good educator always has something else prepared in case students make leaps faster that expected. We finished the planned lesson about seven minuets early so I pulled the ace out of my other sleeve, mass vs. weight. We interacted with a web site that uses and teaches the equation that converts your weight on earth to your weight on other planets, stars, and various celestial bodies. In all each student could be accessed for completing around 4-6 standards.Although I hate standards based instruction, and I think that it will be the cause of our educational system's downfall - I am able to work enduring understandings and real learning into my methods and also satisfy these standards.

Check out the videos I used in my lesson... they are very interesting for a variety of age groups. Thanks for reading. Here are the conversions my students made for assessment of learning:

Top quark = 100 yoctometers or (10^-22) and E. Coli is (10^-8) so the difference between the two is (10^14) or 100,000,000,000,000 times larger... The student taught himself this calculation with the material I gave him.

Redwood tree = (10^2)m compared to a human (10^0).... This figure is not exactly precise though the difference in scale is correct.

One student found out that they would weigh 2,240,000,000,000,000 N on a neutron star though their mass would remain the same.