Supporting physics teaching with research-based resources

A more complete explanation of the approach is available in the related expert recommendation. Briefly, the goal of these materials is to introduce students to astronomy concepts in a way that (1) values students' existing knowledge and beliefs, (2) guides students to reflect on their positionalities and inequities in society, and (3) fosters a sense of connectedness to each other as peers as well as with their broader communities. These three tenets are summarized in the table below.

By building a curriculum on our culturally responsive approach, we guide students towards being techno-social change agents - that is, students who are empowered to problematize social inequities and develop solutions using their new technical knowledge and skills.

Each lesson has an Opening Activity, main Lesson Activity, and Closing Activity. Next to each activity is an icon that indicates whether it highlights asset-building, reflection, and/or connectedness (often times, an activity will involve more than one of these tenets).

The goal of this lesson is to introduce students to the culturally responsive approach, which may be different from their usual science class experiences. As part of this introduction, it is extremely important to have the students (or, as in the curriculum, learners) co-create classroom norms, especially since discussions about identity and power can be sensitive and uncomfortable. However, these discussions are becoming increasingly important and ubiquitous in society and science, and so it's crucial to have students practice these skills in the classroom. Additionally, making sure students feel seen and heard is part of what makes culturally responsive approaches so effective. 

If you need additional prompts/ideas for norms and expectations, I developed some resources for an educational developer group that I work with; while these were not designed for the classroom, many of the ideas are transferable.

Furthermore, if you are able/comfortable, please work with members and elders of local Indigenous communities to invite them to participate in these units. Looking at the sky and trying to understand what we see is something that humans have been doing for millennia, and this curriculum admittedly focuses on science's way of understanding the Universe. However, science is not the only way of thinking and knowing about the world around us. If you are able to, perhaps devote an entire class/program session to let members of the local Indigenous community share their thoughts and approaches, and reference/tie in their content with the rest of the content within this curriculum. You can also invite them to participate in the Closing Ceremony (the last lesson) where students (learners) have the opportunity to present their final projects.

Finally, the introduction guides students to explore online resources to learn about the Solar System (specifically, the Earth-Sun system), which will provide a basis for the following lessons

The second lesson in this sample curriculum has students construct a physical model of the Earth-Sun system. As a result, some materials are required to represent parts of the model, including the Earth, Sun, and string to represent lines of sight (which can provide a more "tangible" representation of lines-of-sight and sun angle). As written, there are 2 flows to the main lesson activity depending on the number of students (or learners). Since this lesson was written with the intent of being implemented in Hawaii, the lesson includes some references (e.g., comparing the sun angle in Hawaii versus Tahiti); feel free to modify these to your own location versus locations in different hemispheres.

The third lesson has students (learners) build on their models from the previous lesson to physically demonstrate why the constellations visible in the night sky vary with time of year and location on Earth. During the activity, students (learners) create their own constellations, rather than being forced to use Western/European constellations - after all, constellations are just a picture that some individual saw in the stars and "stuck".

I've provided simulated images of the night sky from Hilo, Hawaii during the solstices and equinoxes. You could instead use simulated images from your own location - I simply used the desktop version of Stellarium (during the Opening Activity, students use their online web interface), took screenshots of zenith (i.e., directly overhead), and used a free online tool to invert the image colors (you can google similar tools). As you can see in the provided images, Stellarium has the option to "turn off" the Earth's atmosphere, which changes which stars are visible, and how things like the Milky Way or the Moon appear.

In the fourth lesson, students (learners) have the opportunity to simulate the Solar System using an interactive Python notebook. Importantly, this notebook is hosted on Binder, which limits simultaneous instances to 100 users. If you teach a large class, you may need students to work together in order to not overwhelm this limit. The activity description includes an extended teacher's note with considerations about using these notebooks.

This lesson gives students (learners) the opportunity to explore different topics in astronomy while taking a critical look at how we name and describe things in astronomy, including constellations, spaceflight (both crewed and uncrewed), and scientists with "popular" recognition. Students (learners) will have the chance to assess whether these names show biases (and if so, to provide counterexamples) and to suggest a new name for something. This particular activity was inspired by the A Hua He Inoa program from the ‘Imiloa Astronomy Center.

This curriculum was based on a series of programs that always ended with a Closing Ceremony for the participants to celebrate their accomplishments during the program. The participants would help plan the ceremony, inviting friends, family, and community members and leaders to participate as they presented their final projects. While a ceremony per se might not be appropriate in your educational setting, taking time to celebrate students' (learners') accomplishments in a way where they receive recognition from meaningful others contributes to building a science identity. Finally, this lesson includes a closing reflection activity for the students (learners) to wrap up the curriculum.

Finally, these attached materials collect all of the lessons together.