Laurel Park Elementary School is our Spotlight School of the Week
GRADE: 1st
PROGRAM: Astro Adventures
Scientist: Heather Fisher
1st Grade: Astro Adventures
Today at Laurel Park Elementary School, Ms. Markulic and Ms. Thompson’s first grade classes got to spend some time being astronomers and studying about the Earth, Moon, Sun, and stars in our “Astro Adventures” program! While we didn’t blast off into space, we did have a BLAST with all the experiments.
We learned that because the Earth moves around the Sun and the Moon moves around the Earth at the same time, the lit up part of the moon that is visible on Earth changes day to day. We took a look at all of the phases of the moon and I was impressed that the students already knew the name of each phase! Does anyone remember what happens when the earth comes between the moon and sun in the orbit? A lunar eclipse! We actually had a partial lunar eclipse just a few mornings ago, on January 31st. If you missed that one, put January 20th-21st 2019 on your calendar. We will be able to see a TOTAL lunar eclipse right around midnight. Hopefully you can convince your parents to let you stay up extra late so you can see the red moon! 🙂
After studying why we get day and night using an earth and sun model, we traveled outside our solar system to study the stars and constellations. Each student studied the shapes of 6 different constellations using glow in the dark paper, and then got to make a projector of his/her favorite one to take home. Now we can see the constellations every night without having to go out in the cold!
A lot of Ms. Markulic’s students told me they have their very own telescopes at home, so I hope they continue their astronomical studies with their families at home! Look for those constellations, look closer at the surface of the moon, or maybe even see if you can spy a planet! Today we were only able to launch rockets a few feet in the air (which was still AWESOME!), but maybe in the future, one of Ms. Markulic or Ms. Thompson’s students will become a REAL astronaut and be able to travel in a rocket all the way to space!
I had tons of fun with the students today, and we can’t wait to see the rest of the 1st graders at Laurel Park soon!