____________________________MY

CONSTELLATION_____________________________
Materials
Black or blue construction paper Cray-Pas Glitter, Glue Plastic cups Q-tips OR Glow-in-the-dark paint A place to hang them edge to edge, preferably on the ceiling, and tacks or tape to hang with

Objectives
To increase the students awareness of the night sky and the cultural and religious beliefs of Native Americans who describe constellations in their creation myths. And ultimately to discuss and represent the childs own beliefs and items that are of particular importance to them.

Teaching Procedure A. Introduction

The teacher will read a Native American creation story that references or describes constellations drawing the students attention to the way the stars connect to form an image. The class will talk about which characters or objects in the story became constellations and why they were chosen, discussing the importance of the images and where they originated. The teacher will then lay out pictures of constellations and real stars and ask the students to find images in them, asking them to choose things that are important to them personally or that represent something in their lives like a pet or a favorite animal. Finally, the teacher will show images of colorful nebulas. The class will discuss the different gases that make stars very colorful. This will be scientifically instructive and the students will be excited to use a variety of colors where they might otherwise tend to use only white and yellow. An image taken from the Hubble space telescope will illustrate this well.

Image 1 Hubble Space Telescope image of faceon spiral galaxy Messier 101 (M101)

B. Demonstration
The teacher will show a sample constellation, containing a constellation that is somehow relevant to the teachers life. The teacher will discuss with the materials used with the class. The students will identify all the materials that the teacher used and what order they were used in. The students will then students brainstorm people, animals, or things to represent in their constellations.

C. Instruction and work period a. The students will draw with Cray-Pas first, making sure that they cover the paper b. c.
and create a realistic night sky. The students will connect their stars to draw their constellation. When all the students are finished (or close to it) the glitter/glue OR the glow-inthe-dark paint will be brought out. These materials are very exciting and distracting for almost any age so they wont be brought out until the students have almost completed their Cray-Pas drawings. Students will use Q-tips to dab the glue or the glow-in-the-dark paint onto the stars that form their constellation. If the class is using glitter, the teacher will call the students one at a time to another table to use the glitter. Keeping the glitter in a separate area will help minimize mess and the teacher can easily control the glitter. The teacher will hang up the work to dry. The class will sit together and and each student will tell the class what their constellation is why they chose it. *If the teacher has time, they will let the glue/paint dry then hang the images up on the wall edge to edge so that they form a solid black square or rectangle. If possible, especially if the class has used glow-in-the-dark paint, the teacher will tack the pictures onto the ceiling. The class can now sit back and look at their night sky or turn off the lights to see the constellations glow.

d.

e. f.

g.

D. Closure
The class will discuss how the importance of nature and our personal stories. Students will learn how fun it is to make art that is personal to and represents them or something they love.

Sample

Books & Images Native American Star Mythology For younger kids: Taylor, Harriet Peck. Coyote Places the Stars; 1997 For older kids: Monroe, Jean Guard & Williamson, Ray A., Illustrations: Stewart, Edgar. They Dance in the Sky: Native American Star Myths: 2007 Star Charts
Nebulas and brightly colored stars http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubble/science/hst_spiral_m10.html From the Nasa website: Giant galaxies werent assembled in a day. Niether was this Hubble Space Telescope image of the face-on spiral galaxy Messier101 (M101). It is the largest and most detailed photo of a spiral galaxy that has every been released. The galaxys portrait is actually composed of 51 individual Hubble exposures, in addition to elements from images from ground-based photos. The final composite image measures a whopping 16,000 by 12,000 pixels. Traditional star charts Levitt, I.M. & Marshall, Roy K. Star Maps for Beginners: 50th Anniversary Edition; 1992 This book includes different charts for different months of the year so the teacher can go into the fact that the night sky changes and why.