Student Teacher Astronomy Resource (STAR)
The STAR program consists of four components: Comet Tales outreach for all grades, The Solar System: To the Planets, Comets and Beyond! for K to 5 students and teachers; Space Stations for informal outreach, and our Stellar Students program, which brings students to view the Magnet Lab's cosmochemistry facilities. Please read on for details on each of these offerings.
Comet Tales
Target: All grades
A STAR teacher blows on a model of a comet to simulate the effects of solar wind.
They say a spoonful of sugar makes the medicine go down. Well, it turns out it works with science too. As a bunch of Tallahassee school kids learned, Jell-O and cola can make an astronomy lesson pretty fun – and you don't even have to ingest them.
Through FSU geochemist Munir Humayun, who conducts comet research at the Magnet Lab, the lab received a grant from NASA to teach these students about the space agency's Stardust mission, comets and how innovative technologies advance science.
Launched in Spring 2006, the program targets classes in grades 5, 6 and 9. Adapted from NASA lesson suggestions, it features teacher training workshops and hands-on classroom demonstrations. Some of the 2006 class projects were later displayed at the Mag Lab; teachers and select students also had the chance to visit or do research at the lab.
Program director Mabry Gaboardi visited each of the participating classrooms during the multi-week Comet Tales unit, rolling up her sleeves and using dry ice, ammonia, sand and cola to cook up home-made comets. The main idea: Show students that science is exciting, fun and creative.
"Creativity is the base of everything we do in science, and none of our advances would be possible without new, creative technologies and the willingness to look at data in new ways," said Gaboardi.
Teachers interested in Comet Tales outreach should contact Jose Sanchez at sanchez@magnet.fsu.edu.
The Solar System: To the Planets, Comets and Beyond!
Target: Grades K to 5
Local primary educator Marcy Grauer collaborated with Gaboardi, Dixon and Humayun to create this thematic space science unit, which includes inquiry activities that allow students to investigate the four topics listed below.
Using these activities we offer teacher workshops for grades K to 5 in which teachers explore the below curriculum, delve into content information in space science, and question Gaboardi about the NASA Stardust Mission. For more information about attending a future workshop or scheduling one at your school, please contact Pat Dixon.
Click on any of blue links to find downloadable activities. The unit is currently in development and we invite teachers to field test the material and send us their feedback: Please e-mail comments and suggestions to Pat Dixon.
The unit may be downloaded as one large PDF file or in smaller sections:
To view the following video presentations, you will need a high-speed Internet connection and Windows Media Player (version 9 or higher recommended).
Stellar Students
Target: Classrooms that have completed some or all of The Solar System
A "Stellar Student" examines a laser used to sample materials – such as comet dust – to be measured on an attached mass spectrometer.
In this extension of The Solar System curriculum, participating teachers choose one student to represent his or her classroom at the Magnet Lab for one day as Stellar Students. In class, kids learn about the ingenious aerogel material – an exceptionally light, fiberglass-like solid that was used on board Stardust to collect the comet particles that came blasting at it with six times the speed of a bullet. During their visit, students are then challenged to come up with a comet particle collection device of their own, with clay particles standing in for comet dust. One inspired contraption from the 2006 program featured a funnel, a paper plate with a hole cut in it and cherry Jell-O. Its inventors may have what it takes to be tomorrow's NASA engineers.
"We don’t have all the answers," Gaboardi said. "These students may one day supply the answers that we have not yet found."
Space Stations
Target: All ages
This program brings new meaning to "student outreach" by bringing the outer reaches of the solar system into your own school. The Magnet Lab will send an educator and all the necessary materials to teach your students about NASA technology, comets and spacecrafts. These programs, all related to NASA's Stardust mission, are suited to be part of special school-wide events, such as parents nights or science nights, rather than for a single classroom. Choose from the demonstrations listed below.
Catch This: NASA Technology
What is 99.8 percent air, one thousand times less dense than glass, and can withstand temperatures as hot as 1,400 °C Aerogel, a unique substance designed and used by NASA to pick up cometary dust. In this Space Station, students can take a peek at this material, used on the NASA Stardust and Genesis missions. For a preview check out NASA's aerogel page.
Build-A-Comet
Want your students to get to know comets, but can't manage a field trip to the far-off Oort Cloud most comets call home? Then have this Space Station visit your school, so students can cook up comets for themselves! Made of frozen water and gases, dust, rock and organic substances, the nucleus of a comet looks a lot like a big, dirty snowball. The sun usually "blows" off the gas and dust to make a tail. Take a look at some amazing mission photos, taken from the Stardust spacecraft, of Comet Wild 2.
Prepare to Land!
What would it be like to land on another planet? What kind of spacecraft would you need? This Space Station helps students discover the answers. We will provide the landing strips and the surface materials; students provide the ideas. They will then draw their spacecrafts on our "Wall of Technology." Afterwards, students may want to check out what the actual Stardust Mission spacecraft looked like.
For more information, contact Patricia Dixon at pdixon@magnet.fsu.edu or (850) 644-4707.
