Astronomy and Space Sciences

CONTENTS OF CURRICULUM UNIT 05.04.07

  1. Unit Guide
  1. Rationale and Initiation
  2. Lesson Starter: Les Étoiles / The Stars
  3. Lesson Starter: Les Étoiles brillantes et les étoiles faibles / Bright Stars and Dim Stars
  4. Les 20 étoiles les plus brillantes / The 20 Brightest Stars
  5. Les Constellations (The Constellations)
  6. The Pole Star and Changing Sky-Views
  7. Papier ou 3-D? / Paper or 3-D?
  8. Light Years
  9. Activities
  10. Questioning Techniques
  11. Lesson Plans
  12. Annotated Bibliography
  13. Annotated Web Sources
  14. Appendix A: Vocabulaire
  15. Appendix B – Les 20 étoiles les plus brillantes
  16. Endnotes

Qu'est-ce qu'il y a dans le ciel étoilé? Basic Astronomy for Middle School French Students

Crecia L. Cipriano

Published September 2005

Tools for this Unit:

Annotated Bibliography

Freedman, Roger and William Kaufman. Universe, seventh edition. New York: W.H. Freeman and Company, 2005. This is a clearly written and hugely informative astronomy textbook that was integral to the writing of this unit.

Krupp, Dr. E.C. Beyond the Blue Horizon: Myths & Legends of the Sun, Moon, Stars, & Planets. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991. I used this collection of sky stories for basic information on the different myths behind the constellations.

Rey, H.A. Find the Constellations. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1982. The format of this unit is in part based on the format of this English language children's book on constellations and astronomy. The simple language is an ideal model to follow when teaching content in a foreign language, and there are great examples of how to "see" the constellations in the sky. One warning: The distances listed on page 67 for the "15 Brightest Stars" are erroneous, as since the publication of this book, the Hipparcus satellite has provided more accurate measurements than previously available. See Freedman and Kaufman, Appendix 5, for accurate measurements (which have been included in the chart I created of the 20 Brightest Stars.

Rey, H. A. The Stars: A New Way to See Them. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1997. Another great resource for this unit. The chart of the "21 Brightest Stars" replaces distance measurements with magnitudes, so it would be good information to use in demonstrating the different relationships between distance and apparent brightness.

Ridpath, Ian. Eyewitness Handbooks: Stars and Planets. New York: DK Publishing, Inc., 1998. An informative source for students and teachers, with many illustrations, including real images of the stars that make up the constellations, as they appear in the night sky.

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