Discovering Space with Micronauts

Our Micronaut program 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                -Improvising a melody

 -Properties of objects and material

 -Characteristics of organisms

 

Mathematics                                     

-Understanding patterns, relations and functions to analyze mathematical situations

-Spatial reasoning and geometric modeling

 

Social Studies

-Geography: understanding and appreciating relationships

-Applying transformations and using symmetry between people, places, and environments.

 

Participants receive:

The Micronaut Teacher's Guide and CD (11 different lessons that correlate 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. This 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.

Important Content:

-Finding Absolute Value

-Velocity

-Processes of Science

-Slope

-Scientific Notation

-Unifying Concepts of Science

-Square Root

-Ratio and Percents Creative

-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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Workshops are scheduled on an "as-needed" basis.

Please call if interested.

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

Place: Challenger Center at UTC

For a workshop at your location, please call (423) 425-4126

Please note, prices may vary.

Registration Form in PDF

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ARIES Exploring Time contains three 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 four different shadow explorations that help students uncover science concepts related to time.

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

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

Important Content:
-The 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: Explorations in the observation and tracking of both shadow patterns and movement.

Unit 2. Astronomy Lab: Students use models to investigate the Earth/ Moon systems as they relate to shadows and the night & day sky.

Unit 3. Tracking the Sun: Students build simple apparatus in three different 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 two activities in this unit focus around 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

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ARIES Exploring Light and Color:  This module contains five instructional units of exploration into the nature, source and reflection/refraction of light. It addresses students' previously held 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 two activities to investigate some of the properties of light and color.

Unit 2. What Colors Do You See? : Students explore color filters, the mixing of color pigments, and the color of objects.

Unit 3. Investigating Reflections: 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 three 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 five 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. Students also create 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: 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 four exploration activities that focus upon using 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 do useful work

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ARIES Exploring Motion and Forces: Students explore motion and forces by observing and describing straight-line motion of various objects under different conditions. The students construct apparatuses 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 two activities they begin to explore inertia, friction and falling objects.

Unit 2. The Super Sliding Disk: In these five 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 five 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 within several 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 five investigations.

Unit 3. Sounds Like Sound: Wavelike characteristics of sound are explored and connections are made to the observations in Units 1 & 2. Students construct big ears and telephones to investigate the properties of sound in four 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: Students are engaged in explorations dealing with the length of the day, moon phases, size and distance of the moon relative to the Earth,  the motion of stars, and orbital moon motion. Students also observe the constellation and star groups to predict the seasons.

Grade Levels: 5th to 8th

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

Unit 2. Tracking the Moon in the Sky: Students create several different models to investigate the moon’s movement.

Unit 3. Looking at the Starry Sky: In the remaining five 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: This workshop explores the concepts of Location, Direction, and Latitude. Students explore map making, use 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 six explorations are all about maps. Students examine using maps as treasures, grid maps, reference points for Longitude and Latitude, aerial maps, and drawing maps to scale.

Unit 2. Navigating over the Earth’s Surface with a Compass: In these five 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

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Questions? Contact us at (423) 425-4126