Discovering Space with Micronauts uses the allure of the International Space Station to transport students through an interdisciplinary content curriculum. This one-day workshop is designed for elementary teachers grades K through 3. It will demonstrates through hands-on activities, different strategies to incorporate math, science, social studies, language arts, technology, and performing arts standards using a space theme.

Important Content :

Science Language Arts

Science as inquiry Reading to learn in a variety of content areas

Objects in the sky Creative skills for writing

Making and using models

Technology design Performing Arts

Science as a human endeavor Improvise a melody

Properties of objects and material

Characteristics of organisms

 

Mathematics Social Studies

Understanding patterns, relations and functions Geography-understand and appreciate relationships

Apply transformations and use symmetry between people, places, and environments.

to analyze mathematical situations

Spatial reasoning and geometric modeling

 

Participants receive:

The Micronaut Teacher's Guide and CD (11 different lessons correlated to National and TN standards)

Jumbo Bug Card Templates for Buggo

ISS Color Lithograph

1 Large Color ISS Poster

Inflatable Earth Globe

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Graphing Calculators Across the Curriculum is a one-day workshop offered to teachers with limited or no experience with this particular mode of technology. The workshop is designed to demonstrate through hands-on activities strategies to incorporate the use of the graphing calculator and Vernier Data Collecting equipment into a variety of academic subjects. The activities are easily adaptable for most grade levels and introduce a variety of different calculator functions to you and your students. These activities reinforce basic math, science and language arts concepts in a new and exciting format.

Finding Absolute Value

Velocity

Processes of Science

Slope

Scientific Notation

Unifying Concepts of Science

Square Root

Ratio and PercentsCreative

Writing Skills

Linear Regression

Species and Population Generations

Scatter Plot Graphs

Energy and Its Uses

Lines of Best Fit

Science and Technology

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Exploring the TI-84 Plus Graphing Calculator for Algebra I& II is a one-day workshop was designed specifically to meet NCTM Standards for Algebra I and Algebra II. Teachers will be introduced to a variety of calculator functions as they incorporate the use of the graphing calculator and Vernier Data Collecting Equipment to reinforce Algebra I and II concepts. There are ten activities that provide a hands-on approach to data collection and exploration of critical mathematical concepts.

Important Content:

Inequalities

Problem Solving

Cartesian Coordinates

Modeling with Exponential Functions

Number Operations

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All workshops will meet: 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM

Place: Challenger Center at UTC

For a workshop at your location call 423.425.2284

Please note prices may vary.

Please call if interested.

Registration Form in PDF

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ARIES Exploring Time contains 3 separate units that explore the concept and measurement of time. Learn the history behind time and build your own timekeeping devices.
Grade Levels: 3rd - 6th

Unit 1. Time, Shadows and Sundials:
This unit has 4 different shadow explorations that help students uncover science concepts related to time.

Unit 2. Water Clocks: Other Devices for Measuring Time:
There are 6 different explorations in this unit using water and sand models to measure and calibrate large and small intervals of time.

Unit 3. Exploring Pendulums: Unit 3 lets students explore motion in relation to keeping time by investigating how pendulums work

Important Content:
Nature of Shadows
Patterns of outdoor shadows during the course of the day
Predictability of shadow patterns as a means of telling time
Factors affecting the flow of water as a means of telling time
Length as the determining factor in the period of a pendulum
Predictability of a pendulum in measuring small amounts of time

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ARIES Exploring the Earth in Motion module contains 4 units to explore the concepts of day and night, moon tracking and phases and seasons. Use the same tools the Astronomers used to observe, predict and explain these reoccurring phenomena.
Grade Levels 3rd-8th

Unit 1 Shadows: In Unit 1 there are 3 explorations in the observations and tracking of shadow patterns and movement.

Unit 2 Astronomy Lab: Unit 2 uses models to investigate the Earth Moon system as it relates to shadows and night and day.

Unit 3 Tracking the Sun: Students build simple apparatus in 3 separate experiments to gather data about the path of the sun. The students use the devices to track, record and measure the sun’s apparent or indirect movement.

Unit 4 Refracting Telescopes: The 2 activities in this unit center on making and using a telescope. This investigation allows students to observe terrestrial and celestial bodies.

Important Content:
Changing patterns in hours of daylight
Patterns of outdoor shadows during the course of the day
Using a magnet to find direction
Measuring the angular height of the Sun
Patterns of the Sun’s apparent movement in the sky at different times of the year
Nature of lenses
Building and using a refracting telescope

For science and social studies teachers.

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ARIES Exploring Light and Color module contains five instructional units of exploration into the nature, source and reflection/refraction of light. It addresses student prior ideas about vision, color and light. You will study light using the Photon Theory of Light.
Grade Levels 3rd -6th.

Unit 1 Building and Using a Light and Color Lab: The Lab apparatus is used in 2 activities to investigate some of the properties of light and color.

Unit 2 What Colors Do You See? The next 3 activities explore color filters, the mixing of color pigments and the color of objects.

Unit 3 Investigating Reflections: In 4 activities, students investigate different surfaces and how they reflect images. Mirrors are used to examine double images. Light beams and angles are also explored.

Unit 4 Prisms, Light Beams and the Visible Light Spectrum: This unit has 3 activities using prisms to investigate the behavior of white light. Can you make a rainbow?

Unit 5 Learning About Lenses and Cameras: The unit has 5 explorations to investigate and study the nature of lenses. Students make magnifying glasses out of water to explore what happens to a beam of light. Make pinhole cameras to explore how lenses enhance images.

Important Content:
Nature of light
Effect of mirrors on light paths
Effect of a prism on a beam of white light
Effect of water on a light beam
Observing scattered light
Nature of lenses

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ARIES Exploring Energy Module: In this module students investigate energy. They explore how energy is used to do work and the sources of energy in nature that can be observed directly and indirectly. The module activities are in the same order as they were first used in history. Grade Levels: 3rd-5th

Unit 1 Energy and People Power: Students perform simple tasks to give concrete meaning to the terms work, energy and power. Then calculations are done to measure the amount of work done and the amount of power expended.

Unit 2 Using the Hidden Energy of Flowing Water: Students construct reservoir, stream table and waterwheel models to investigate how the energy of flowing water can be harnessed for work.

Unit 3 Catching the Wind’s Energy: There are 4 explorations on wind as energy. Students build anemometers, pinwheels and windmills to observe how wind can be used as a source of energy.

Unit 4 Using the Energy of the Sun: Students investigate the absorption of sunlight by different materials and construct a variety of devises to capture and use the sunlight to do work.

Important Content:
Definition of “energy” and “work”
Relationship between energy and work
The energy of flowing water
Wind as an energy source
Sunlight as energy
Using energy to so useful work

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ARIES Exploring Motion and Forces Module: Students explore motion and forces by observing and describing straight-line motion of various objects under different conditions. The student s make construct apparatus to explore these concepts.
Grade Levels: 5th-8th.

Unit 1 Motion All Around: Students investigate motion, kinds of forces, and the push or pulls that initiate motion. In the 2 activities they begin to explore inertia, friction and falling objects.

Unit 2 The Super Sliding Disk: In these 5 activities, students investigate motion of an object on a horizontal surface. The students make disk models to explore the behavior of an object’s motion and the push and pulls that affect motion.

Unit 3 Rolling Motion on an Inclined Plane: Using experimental science and the process of inquiry students describe and measure the motion of a marble on an inclined track through 5 concept building explorations.

Unit 4 Acceleration and the ARIES Speedcart: The students build a speed car to investigate how motion is effected by different methods of propulsion. The simple apparatus enables students to change variables in 5 different experiments to examine Newton’s Laws of Motion.

Important Content:
Forces (“pushes and pulls”) and motion
Inertia and friction
Newton’s model of gravity
Speed and acceleration
Motion on horizontal surfaces and inclined planes
Falling, sliding, rolling, and wheeled motion

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ARIES Exploring Waves: Water, sound and music are everyday life occurrences. In this module students study these wavelike phenomena by, learning about the behavior of waves from the visible to the invisible. Students observe and describe the behavior of wave motion in water with the models they construct. This will lead to an investigation into sound.
Grade Levels: 5th –8th

Unit 1 Waves and Motion: Students observe wave motion, make human waves, build wave machines and model waves with ropes.

Unit 2 Water Waves: Students construct ripple tanks to make waves. They observe and predict wave behavior when different obstacles are introduced as they work through 5 investigations.

Unit 3 Sounds Like Sound: Wavelike characteristics of sound are explored and connections are made to the observations in Units I and 2. Students construct big ears and telephones to investigate the properties of sound in 4 activities.

Important Content:
The nature of waves
How water waves behave
Sound waves
Transmitting sound through various media
Sound patterns, pitch, and music

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ARIES Exploring Moon and Stars curriculum is grade 5 through 8 appropriate and compliments perfectly the established Exploring the Earth in Motion module. Students are engaged in explorations dealing with length of day, moon phases, size and distance of the moon relative to the Earth, apparent motion of stars, and orbital moon motion. Plus, students observe the constellation and star groups to predict the seasons.

Unit 1 The Reason for Seasons:
This unit has 7 different explorations that allow students to discover patterns in nature that produce our seasons.

Unit 2 Tracking the Moon in the Sky:
There are 5 explorations using student made models to investigate the moon’s movement.

Unit 3 Looking at the Starry Sky:
In the remaining 5 explorations students locate, observe and track stars using a Star Projector that they make themselves.

Important Content:
The changing length of day
The apparent motion of the Sun
The changing distribution of sunlight
Moon phases
The relative size of the Moon and its distance from the Earth
The orbital and axial motions of the Moon
The apparent motion of the Stars
Constellations and star groups

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ARIES Exploring Navigation explores the concepts of Location, Direction, and Latitude. Students are engaged in explorations of map making, using a compass to navigate over the earth’s surface and learn how to use the Sun and Stars to Navigate.
Grade Levels: 5th to 8th

Unit 1 Maps and Mapping: These 6 explorations are all about maps. Maps as treasures, Grid Maps, Reference Points for Longitude and Latitude, Aerial Maps and Maps to Scale.

Unit 2 Navigating over the Earth’s Surface with a Compass: In these 5 explorations, students make a compass learn to read and use the compass with their maps to determine one location from another.

Unit 3 Using the Sun and Stars to Navigate: Students will build their own Astrolabe to find Latitude and a Star Finder apparatus to explore finding time and direction.

Important Content:
Map scale and aerial views
Magnetic compasses
Plotting a course
Global grids
Determining latitude
Celestial navigation using the Sun and stars

For science and social studies teachers.

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Questions?Contact us at 423.425.4126