Science Grade 7 Astronomy Simulation about Age and Distance Between Stars

Using Raisin Crème Cakes for simulation activity in Astronomy

Another quick post about an activity with 7th graders that occurred about 2-3 months ago when learning about stars, what their colors signify about their age and their distance. 

The Holt module text teacher edition had an activity suggestion that sparked my thoughts about using Little Debbie's Raisin Crème Cakes to measure distances of raisins as the stars.

100% engagement!!! Students used notebook paper or copy paper to trace a circle around the perimeter of their crème cake. They also needed to draw accurate sizes and locations for each raisin/star that was on the surface of the top part. They were instructed to identify a starting point and label each raisin star with a letter of the alphabet.

Next came the measuring and recording of distances between stars. Because this was 7th grade level working in a 40-45 minute class period, I had them do the measuring from A to B, C to D, E to F, etc. If I remember correctly, maybe 2 or 3 added some extra distances. An accommodation for IEP students were that a minimum of 7 measurements were to be part of their recording sheet.

Students could only eat their crème cake after I deemed that all the required data was completed.

Living in land-locked central Illinois, this was a great hands-on laboratory type activity to be included in our lessons about astronomy. A month before this they had to pick a star to study for a diorama presentation titled "A Star is Born". Learning about white dwarf, red dwarf, blue, and yellow stars became a bit easier with the cake portion representing the sky/outer space and the raisins as stars. Traveling to a planetarium wasn't possible. Looking at NASA website helped. Looking at some marvelous paintings by my talented cousin trying to capture the night sky helped. Plotting and measuring the distances of raisins definitely helped the 7th graders conceptualize the significances of color and age in stars.

Teaching and learning in the USA heartland,

Becca S

aka Mrs. S or Mrs. Sadler

Crater Impact Study Started with 7th graders

Yesterday, September 20, 2019 seventh graders and I started experimenting with flour and colored water to serve as a crust layer along with gathered parking lot rocks as meteoroids to try different angles and heights (10", 20", 30", and over 36") for solar system impact observation study.

Here are a few photos in action yesterday:

I took photos of all 4 groups but I don't know what happened to the rest of the photos. I'll have to follow up later. Each group had different colored water (blue, purple-blue, green, and red). Equipped with yardsticks to check the different height drops, students were trying to coordinate different tasks including data keeping. However, data keeping went by the wayside as playing with the flour and water after 'meteoroid' landings needed to be checked for depths of the impact craters. [math integration] 

Supplies were: old metal baking pans, paper towel layer, flour (about 2 lbs.), squirt bottles, food coloring, water, rocks of different sizes, yardsticks, yellow copy paper for data, and pencils.

Oh, what a mess they made however they were so excited to be 'doing science' that I couldn't get too upset and frustrated with them. Afterwards as they finished cleaning their hands and were getting their stuff to go to their next class, almost every one of the 13 (of 14) seventh graders made a comment about how cool that was....

From the USA heartland,

Becca S