It is exciting to see how you integrate books with the planetarium experience, along with getting students to explore shadows of their own. While we have not yet actively researched the effects of learners' movements in our project, it's our experience that young students learn a great deal by being physically immersed in their learning, particularly about physical phenomena, since they are the ones in control of what is happening and they can repeat these actions a number of times. Learning is also deepened when these physical experiences are coupled with conversations in which students describe, reflect on and try to make sense of what they have observed, so the experience is both hands-on and minds-on.

Hi Jeff,

Thank you so much for your interest in our work, and for sharing your experience  with young learners. We agree that it's important not only for students to be physically immersed in their learning, but to make sense of what they've done.

For instance, in the third grade lessons, students sort pictures of the phases of the Moon before and after their visit to the planetarium. In the second card sort, one of the teachers asked students what they did differently. A couple of students mentioned that they changed their order based on what they did in the planetarium. It's interesting to see the ways teachers and students work together to make sense of the phenomena they're investigating!

Hi Abigail - thanks for the post!  There's been a good amount of research done with classrooms using computer-based planetarium software (e.g. Starry Night, Stellarium, etc.).  It has been shown to help students solidify concepts, although the flat screen format is less "real life" like than being in an actual dome.

Hi Jacqueline,

Thanks for your comments and questions! We're always interested in ways to make astronomical phenomena relevant to students' lives and communities. For example, in the third grade lesson sequence, students read stories about the patterns that different cultures see in the Moon. They then create their own story. Likewise, in the first grade lessons, students read about Moonbear, then create their own shadow story. What other opportunities or suggestions do you or others have for enabling students to bring their diverse ideas and experiences to their investigations?

Kristin,

I love how you invite students to create their own stories. In some of the equity work I've been involved in we have read I Know the Moon by Stephen Axel Anderson. It is a great book for understanding that there are different ways of knowing. You just have to be careful that the "truth" is not just held by the "Man of Science" in the book (I know an odd thing for a scientist to say). We have used it to introduce the idea that indigenous/traditional ways of knowing are based on observation and are as valid as Western science. It helps open up conversations about what different families and communities might think about the subject.

Thank you Jacqueline for your comments!  

Our wish is to allow every student to have a voice, and relate to the phenomenon under investigation in their own way.  In so many ways, indigenous ways of knowing are relational in nature, while western science is transactional. It's not so much one is more "right" than the other, they are different approaches to the natural world.  We have much to learn from one another, if we are willing to keep our minds open.

Hi Rebecca, 

Thank you for visiting our video!

Yes, we are planning to have teaching kits available at some point.  Though the resources are easily obtained and/or created.

We have wondered about the best ways for teachers without access to a planetarium could take advantage of a program such as this.  VR goggles were not one of the ways we considered, however there are a great many desktop planetarium software offerings available.  And, it seems like the numbers of portable domes is increasing across the country.  

Hi Rebecca,

Thanks for your thoughts and feedback! I agree with Brian that the materials should be easily obtained or created. Moonbear's Shadow is available at most online booksellers. Breakfast Moon was developed with a supplemental NSF grant to the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and is available through the ASP's website.

The hands-on materials should be as similar to the books as possible. The first grade students liked picking their favorite color of bear, and making shadows with bear and the tree. The flashlight had little "rays" around it to represent the Sun. It remains a question whether those rays were entirely necessary to support their sense making. I don't think it would be that hard for students to create their own construction paper frames to wrap around a flashlight.

As for the VR goggles, that's an interesting idea. It would certainly let students see phenomena like Moon phases closely in an abbreviated time span. I wonder if would make any kids dizzy. I've tried my hand at a few immersive VR games, and while I've done fine, I wonder about kids with more delicate constitutions.

Thank you Susan for your kind words!  I agree, so much of what we do, and remember, has to do with the stories we tell, and create.

Hi Sue,

I agree! Narratives are powerful tools for engagement and education. It's as true for adults as it is for children. If we've learned anything from our time sheltered in place, it's the power of a good story. Be that local story-readers or national influencers, stories have impacts. May we all remember this as we prepare our next rounds of proposals, reports, and manuscripts!

Hi Kristin and team --

I am so intrigued by your use of narrative and character identification with the first graders to introduce science and astronomy. The power of a compelling story and connection to characters is a terrific hook to the topic (coming from a former librarian!).

We are actually doing a research study on this specific topic for our current computer sceince focused season of SciGirls. I am looking forward to seeing your findings.

Hi Rita,

So great that we have these interests in common! I look forward to hearing what you find from your SciGirls research. Narratives are powerful, wonderful things.

Hi Leigh, thank you for watching our video!

I think there are a lot of connections between what you are accomplishing in your project and ours.  Bridging between the formal and informal is always a challenge.  Having a seamless transition, with each venue mutually supporting, is pretty much essential.  Most of the informal folks I know wish there were more efforts like these, to contextualize the experience they are offering during the field trips.

We are still working to tease apart the contributions from each aspect of the instructional sequence we worked with.  Hopefully Kristin will weigh in with what they are seeing in the data.  

Hi Leigh,

Thanks for viewing our video, and sharing such interesting comments! 

We are analyzing video-recorded observations of the instructional sequence, including the planetarium. We are looking for evidence of the kinds of science practices in which students are engaging (in our case, noticing, recognizing change, and making predictions), and coding the connections that instructors and students are making between the sequence components. 

As you can see in the video, planetarium instructors are bringing in the characters from the storybook into their shows, and giving students the opportunity to observe astronomical phenomena in an abbreviated time span. We're also seeing that teachers and students then apply some of what they learned when they return to class. For example, in the third grade, students sorted Moon phase cards at the beginning and end of the instructional sequence. At the end, we heard two groups of students mention that they changed the order of the cards based on what they had seen in the planetarium. In the first grade, we heard students incorporating vocabulary that they had heard in the planetarium. When a teacher asked students what they need to make a shadow, they responded with "a light source and something to block the light" – the exact terms the planetarium presenter had used and displayed on the dome.

Thanks again for your question! I agree with Brian that it sounds like our projects have much in common.

Hi Leigh,

I think this is a great question.  In my own research connecting informal and formal settings, and reading of the literature, I have considered what opportunity the planetarium (or other environment) might afford that is not available to students in their current classroom environment.  If the informal setting just recreates conditions present in a classroom, then there may little added value.  But if the children and teacher can bring new ideas, observations, interests, or motivations back with them to the classroom that can then be leveraged for additional learning.

Hi Catherine,

Thanks for viewing our video and asking such interesting questions! We're only studying one instructional sequence, so we can't really say what would happen if students saw the character in the planetarium first. I suspect that students really need to engage in the narrative to appreciate the character. They do that through reading the storybook once or twice. We saw the first grade students getting very excited in Moonbear's adventures, and laughing every time his attempts to get rid of his shadow ended in failure. We heard the third grade students speculate on what the Moon would look like on each day in the story, and what the family in the story would eat that was shaped like the Moon they saw. Would that same kind of engagement have been possible in the planetarium? Maybe, but it was probably better suited for a classroom setting.

We're analyzing video recorded observations for the connections that students and teachers are making between the elements of the lesson sequence. As I mentioned in my reply to Leigh above, We're also seeing that teachers and students then apply some of what they learned when they return to class. For example, in the third grade, students sorted Moon phase cards at the beginning and end of the instructional sequence. At the end, we heard two groups of students mention that they changed the order of the cards based on what they had seen in the planetarium. In the first grade, we heard students incorporating vocabulary that they had heard in the planetarium. When a teacher asked students what they need to make a shadow, they responded with "a light source and something to block the light" – the exact terms the planetarium presenter had used and displayed on the dome.

It would be interesting to assess longer term recall of students' experiences, perhaps a month or two later, or at the end of a school year. For now, we have to rely on our short term observations.

Thanks again for your questions and interest in our work!

Interesting that you've created what sounds like a follow-up science "game" to keep the students engaged.  Maintaining that continuing engagement with the site of informal learning is a challenge--your card game sounds like one useful way.  At the site informal learning for our project, a public aquarium, we've focused on food webs--basically who eats whom--perhaps we should send the class off with a food web card game, for continued learning and reinforcement.

Catherine, I love your idea about introducing the characters in the planetarium first, but as a planetarium director I would love having the planetarium experience at all stages of learning. Realistically, there will be only one field trip to a planetarium for any classroom, while the other activities can be sequenced and revisited according to the teacher's wishes. (That's within the bounds of other school-related constraints and also the weather!) So maybe in the long run we need to present a few approaches to the field trip according to whether a classroom schedules it at the beginning, the middle, or the end of the sequence. For this test of the sequence, I am glad we put it in the middle, as students came to the planetarium with a set of experiences that they could make sense of in the planetarium's special learning environment.

Hi Isabelle, 

Most of the teachers used the storybook after a brief probing of what learners already know about shadows or lunar phases.  They then read the book, which inspired in-class explorations of the phenomena they saw in the book.  A second reading on a different day then led to some more focused observations of the phenomena in the classroom.  Following the planetarium visit, teachers would read the book a third time, more closely with each reading, to reinforce the noticing of patterns.  

Teachers used K-W-L charts, which served to guide whole-class discussions throughout the sequence.  For the most part, the investigations, while guided, were open-ended enough students were able to make meaning through their own noticing and predicting.

For Moonbear in the planetarium, John Erickson deliberately incorporated a bear into the experience.  Following some kinesthetic shadow making in the planetarium, he used the bear to help students with the concept of direction and length of the bear's shadow compared to the location of the Sun on the dome.  The advantage of using the planetarium is he could change the position of the Sun quickly, repeating as necessary to help students with their mental models of how shadows work.  After their experience with the readings, and in-class activities, students were excited to see the bear in the planetarium, and all waved and called out goodbye as it waddled off the stage.

Isabelle,

Good question about Moonbear in the planetarium. I would like to have asked students, "How was Moonbear a good scientist? What would you tell him to make him a better scientist?" Moonbear, as a storybook character, was excellent at noticing what was happening right in front of him. He was very poor at synthesizing ideas, recognizing patterns, making explanations, and a long list of other science practices. Moonbear is very likable, but students might get some satisfaction in recognizing scientific abilities in themselves that Moonbear is still working on. A similar discussion might happen with the characters in "Breakfast Moon," but in that case the characters are good role models for scientific practices rather than foils.

Thank you for watching our video!

The books and materials are easily obtained.  Breakfast Moon is a publication of the ASP, and we will have kits of Moonbear shadow activities soon.

Both planetarium field trips were designed to provide an interactive experience for the students.  Thus, each individual "show" was somewhat unique.  Other than the graphics to include the bear, and images of Mae and Arthur, the manipulation of the sky to produce the sequence of lunar phases, and the position of the Sun are fairly standard presets in most planetarium software.  Hopefully either or both Karen and John will weigh in on their process for developing the experience.

Paul, 

We have not yet packaged the planetarium workshop for distribution, but there is an outline/script for the program and I have the essential graphics which I could share if you or someone you know is interested in trying it in a planetarium. The way the graphics would be used depends on your planetarium software. Let me know if you have questons.

Hi Alison, that is a really interesting point about how the storybook provides a comforting anchor point for teachers.  

The teachers were essential partners in the development of the instructional sequence.  During preliminary meetings with them, we engaged them in activities to ensure their understanding of the phenomena, including modeling.  This professional development helped them when we looked at the sorts of activities 1st and 3rd graders would find engaging, giving them the opportunity to use science practices in their investigations.  

The original proposal actually was inspired following a presentation where it was shown how elementary teachers have few opportunities for science-related professional development, and take advantage of even fewer.  So, we wanted to develop a program that would help rectify this lack.  Project PLANET is an exploratory project, focusing on the learning strand, so in some ways the teacher PD was secondary, though essential to allow them to successfully implement the instructional sequence.  

Hi. The Moon activities were for a grade 3, so the learning goals did not go as far as making explanations of ideas that, as you say, are not easy for adults. The learning goals and the assessment were about noticing and recording, recognizing patterns, and making predictions based on observations and patterns. The characters in the story "Breakfast Moon" are good role models for that. That said, we did want teachers to be comfortable with their own understanding of Moon phenomena, so the development process with the teachers included hands-on exploration of Moon phases using activities that have been successful with upper grades and adults. That was at the Pennsylvania end of the project, and I was on the California end with grade 1, so I don't know first hand how that experience went for the grade 3 teachers. With the shadows and the grade 1 teachers, you are right. The shadow concepts are accessible and the development process with the teachers did not require that kind of conceptual instruction. In fact there was a lot of sharing that gave us more ideas for activities surrounding the book and the planetarium experience.

Hi Al,

Thanks so much for your kind words about our video! I'm glad you share our interest in imaginative stories.

In our work, we've focused on studying the practices of noticing, recognizing change, and making predictions, which we hope will ultimately lead to improvements in students' ability to construct evidence-based explanations. We've seen the first grade teachers elicit student questions through a Know-Wonder-Learn chart. The teachers aren't necessarily helping students craft better questions, but are instead writing the questions they ask, and revisiting them at the end of the instructional sequence. If there are any questions left unanswered, it would be interesting for students to generate their own investigations. That might help them refine their questions. Maybe we could suggest this to teachers as an extension activity!

Hi Jennifer,

Thanks for bringing attention to the importance of how Project Planet highlights the ways young children can engage in science practices.  Young children have far more capacity for these practices and ways of scientific than many people realize or give credit to. My research with My Sky Tonight found similar capabilities to engage in science practices with preschool-age audiences around similar phenomena.  

You've brought up some great questions.  This is an exploratory grant but studying long-term impacts could be a good question for the next phase of research.

Hi Jennifer,

Full disclosure first – Jen and I are colleagues at Rockman et al. I didn't put her up to these great comments and questions! Thanks so much for viewing our video, and recognizing that early elementary children can investigate natural phenomena. It's neat to see them noticing shadows and Moon phases, recognizing change, and making predictions. And like you, they would probably want a Moonbear plushie if it was available.

I agree with Julia that as a two-year exploratory study we don't have the capacity to study longer-term outcomes. That would be a great question for future research. I suspect that at the end of the school year, or even a year out, students would still remember the story and trip to the planetarium.

Thanks again!

Kristin

Thank you Jennifer!  We hope for continued funding to investigate some of the interesting questions we came up with, along with some of the interesting comments we received over the past week in this forum.