Teacher Resources for Instructional Planning


HS, Earth Science Std 7: Explain techniques for determining the age and composition of Earth and the universe.

Lesson Plans: Jewels of the Night The Jewels of the Night is a hands-on, teacher-tested activity for middle school and older students. Students measure the color and brightness of stars in the Jewelbox Cluster from a color image. They determine the age of the cluster by plotting their measurements in a color-brightness diagram. The activity develops classification and graphing skills and fosters observation, communication, and cooperative learning skills. Students are exposed to ideas about the nature of stars, temperature and color, stellar evolution, the time scales of astronomical phenomena, and how astronomers can determine the ages of objects in the universe. I've Got Your Number In this lesson, students assess the journalistic value of numbers used in newspaper articles while learning about the significance of the Hubble telescope’s new data on the age of the universe. The Expanding Universe In this exercise, you will use a two-dimensional analogy to explore the expansion of the Universe. Using Radioactive Decay to Determine Geologic Age Explain to students that they are going to participate in an activity that will demonstrate to them how geologists determine the absolute age of rocks or minerals. Radiometric Dating Activity This hands-on activity is a simulation of some of the radiometric dating techniques used by scientists to determine the age of a mineral or fossil.

Resources: Exploring Planets: More than 25 hands-on science activities are provided in classroom-ready pages for both teachers and students for exploring Earth, the planets, geology, and space sciences. Discoveryschools.com Teachnology Space and Astronomy Lesson Plans The Space Place A great site from NASA to explore with your students. Don't miss the Goodies for Teachers area for printables and lesson worksheets. NASA Spacelink Use this website to start your search of the NASA collection of educational materials, such as classroom lessons, online activities, and multimedia resources. NASA Explores Express Lessons and Online Resources Lesson Plan Central An educator's guide to lesson plans, worksheets, web links, and more.
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