Endnotes
1. Even with this enthusiasm, too much will turn students off, so I suggest using the Stars lesson starter to create the first day's lesson, then introducing a constellation or two the next day, and the third day using the Bright Stars and Dim Stars lesson starter to create a lesson that will use the previous day's constellations to illustrate what is introduced. Also: See Appendix A – Vocabulary, for a list of French-English vocabulary in the unit.
2. For an image and explanation of Edgar Dale's Cone of Learning, see the following website: http://www.acu.edu/cte/activelearning/whyuseal2.htm.
3. Unless otherwise noted, all science facts and information in this unit are taken and combined from Freedman (2005), Ridpath (1998), Rey (1982 & 1997), and the Imago Mundi website. I synthesized this information for each section and, where indicated, formed appropriate French language ways to communicate the information to middle school language learners, and then translated my French for the "English Translation."
4. For the Constellation section, myths are taken from Krupp, the Mythography website, and Rey (1982 & 1997). The quantity of stars of each magnitude is determined by counting the representations of stars of different magnitudes in the constellation images in Rey (1982).
5. Astrologists contend that this positioning means something in terms of human behavior and character; astronomers contend that it means nothing. To disprove the significance of astrology as a science, astronomers often cite precession, a process by which the gravitational pulls of the Sun on one side of the Earth and the Moon on the other cause the Earth to kind of wobble, like a spinning top, while it rotates; this wobbling results in a change in the position of the Earth's axis and through that, a change in the position of the celestial poles. For a clear picture of how this works, see Rey's The Stars (p. 129). For a concise article detailing some of the factual, scientific shortcomings and inaccuracies of astrology, see Freedman and Kaufman, page 41. This unit will address astronomy, and not astrology; although students may want to tell what they "know" about astrology, teachers should be clear and firm that astrology is not astronomy, that astronomy is a very debatable study, and that it is not a science as astronomy is.
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