IN THE CLASSROOM -- A lesson written in the stars

Danette Goulet

* IN THE CLASSROOM is a weekly feature in which Daily Pilot education

writer Danette Goulet visits a campus within the Newport-Mesa Unified

School District and writes about her experience.

Enthralled young scientists recreated the night sky -- as accurately

as they could, considering that they were using paper plates.

It was night and day from what students thought they would be doing.

Sixth-graders at Kaiser Elementary School received their first

astronomy lesson Monday morning when the lack of sun interrupted their

solar energy unit, said 11-year-old Shane Murray.

Yet they paid rapt attention as Phil Schinhofen, the science teacher,

relayed the fanciful myth of the constellation Cassiopeia.

“This is cool -- science is cool,” Shane said.

Children were taught about the three most important constellations --

the Little Dipper, the Big Dipper and Cassiopeia -- using a fun, hands-on

technique.

As I wandered around the science room, I found myself wanting to make

a star chart with them.

They began by creating the star groupings on index cards with a hole

punch. They connected the holes and labeled the constellations -- like

any good scientist would.

Then it was time to create their star chart -- one that would be

superior to those for sale in stores, Schinhofen told them.

They began by lining up the Little Dipper’s tail -- Polaris, or the

North Star -- in the center of their plates.

“The Native Americans called it the star that doesn’t wander,”

Schinhofen told students, explaining that it was the only star that does

not move and all else rotates around it.

The budding astronomers worked outward from there, lining up the

pointer stars in the Big Dipper’s cup with Polaris.

This is where problems started popping up.

If done correctly, as the examples provided for them showed, the

constellations would extend to the curved edges of the plate.

However, some students -- determined to keep the stars in the center

-- drew the constellations randomly. For example, if the universe looked

anything like our friend Shane’s first rendering -- where all the

constellations were attached to Polaris -- it would be a very crowded

sky.

But with a little coaching, students managed to get those glitches

worked out. Once the constellations were mapped out and relabeled, they

attached a stick to the center -- Polaris -- on which to rotate the sky.

After creating this very cool miniature rendition of the universe, no

student could have possibly walked away without learning something about

astronomy.

FYI

WHO: Sixth-grade students from Beth Nowlin’s class

WHAT: Learning about astronomy with science teacher Phil Schinhofen

WHERE: Kaiser Elementary School, Costa Mesa