Lessons on Theories of the Universe
In this section, we provide resources to help you help students acquire a clear picture of the evolution
of humans' ideas of the universe. In doing so, you reinforce the nature of how science knowledge is accumulated;
that is, science progresses when people build on accumulated knowledge. Additionally, middle school students will
be able to make connections to the world history lessons they typically experience in their social studies
curriculum. You may find it helpful to consult with social studies teachers to ascertain what students know.
Then, you can start your instruction there and bridge to the new material.
This is the educator guide of an archived NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
CONNECT program. The program relates how cultures from ancient times to the present have used the sun and
other objects in the sky to mark the passage of time and to predict seasons and special events. It contains
an activity in which students use a gnomon (a stick used to cast shadows) to make sun shadow plots. After
students have made their plot, they will use it to determine the direction of true north. Students will
gain experience in measuring angles; collecting and analyzing data to make predictions; using the angle
bisector method to find true north; and using ratios to predict the length of shadows cast by the different
lengths of the gnomon. The guide also contains background material and worksheets. A 30-minute video, which
can be viewed online or ordered, is available to support the guide.
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This activity provides instructions for making a scale model of the solar system and learning
the real definition of space.
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Participation in this lesson positions students to compare ancient humans’ perceptions and models
of the universe with our current perceptions and models. This lesson plan helps students understand the
relationship between the Earth and the Sun and how this relationship affects observable phenomena on Earth,
such as the seasons. Students will describe the differences between the four seasons and investigate why the
seasons occur; diagram the Earth and Sun during different seasons; predict and find out what the weather is in
different places; and write journal entries from the viewpoints of people living in different parts of the world.
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While this site gives historical context for a sophisticated concept, it also provides a lesson
plan. About 2,000 years ago the Greek astronomer Hipparchus discovered that the position of the Sun at any season,
measured against the background stars, migrates in a slow cycle of about 26,000 years. This precession of the
equinoxes also shifts the position of the celestial pole (so that our pole star would not have been a good guide
for the ancient Greeks) and is caused by the rotation axis of the Earth slowly moving around a cone. Precession
may be one of several astronomical processes contributing to the ice ages, as proposed by the Serbian astronomer
Milutin Milankovich. Click on Lesson Plan to find the related lesson plan.
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Copyright
November 2007 — The Ohio State University. This material is based upon work
supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. 0424671. Any
opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this
material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of
the National Science Foundation.
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This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons License.
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