Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Met by These Lessons:
Look Up to the Stars is able to provide training and STEM related activities that meet and exceed Next Generation Science Standards for Earth in Space and Time. For example, one of the standards for 5th grade states Recognize the size of items as either big or small. Our program on Size & Scale of the Universe helps each student achieve this through several objectives and hands-on activities. Another example includes to Recognize that there are many stars in the sky and to Identify that magnifiers enlarge the appearance of objects. Both of these are covered in great detail in our programs Roadmap to the Stars: the Night Sky Explained and Telescopes.
Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) Addressed in Programs Offered by Look Up to the Stars
Disciplinary Core Ideas in Earth and Space Science
ESS1: Earth’s Place in the Universe
Using an orrery and other digitally graphic mechanical models of the solar system, galaxy and universe, positions and motions according to the heliocentric model are represented.
ESS1.A: The Universe and Its Stars
Stellar birth, evolution, death, size, brightness, color, number and distribution are illustrated in a variety of ways, including their distances and patterns formed in the sky with asterisms and constellations.
ESS1.B: Earth and the Solar System
Comparative planetology with rocky worlds and gas giants, orbital dynamics, mass, size, moons, role of the sun, comets, meteors, asteroids and other solar system debris are addressed.
ESS1.C: The History of Planet Earth
From the perspective of its age and the formation of our solar system, we look at earth’s size, mass, heat and water.
ESS2: Earth’s Systems
We consider interactions between the Earth's atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere (depending on the program, we may identify environmental concerns on a global scale — as well as the impact of human societies on these components, and differentiate types of lighting and their effects on the night sky), the magnetosphere and the heliosphere.
ESS2.C: The Roles of Water in Earth’s Surface Processes
Astrogeology is applied examining tributaries and alluvial fans on Mars compared to the Earth.
The following standards are addressed only when the program includes Spaceship Earth: Our Global Environment.
ESS2.D: Weather and Climate
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
ESS3.A: Natural Resources
ESS3.C: Human Impacts on Earth Systems
ESS3.D: Global Climate Change
Disciplinary Core Ideas in Physical Science
PS1: Matter and Its Interactions
Stellar system formation is analyzed and discussed regarding coalescence, gravity, protoplanetary discs, accretion, and conservation of momentum.
PS1.A: Structure and Properties of Matter
Atomic structure, human cells, neutron stars, nebulae, and even nonbaryonic forms of dark matter are described.
PS1.B: Chemical Reactions
Proton interactions in the solar wind, colors in nebulae and supernova remnants, especially using spectroscopy, reveal their reactivity and composition.
PS1.C: Nuclear Processes
Fusion in a star’s core causes it to burn and glow, heavier elements burn hotter causing expansion, and the heaviest elements are formed during supernovae explosions.
PS2: Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions
Stellar life cycles, solar wind, and supernovae give many excellent examples.
PS2.A: Forces and Motion
Everything from the solar wind to rapidly rotating pulsars to acceleration in the expanding universe helps to develop a better understanding of forces and motion.
PS2.B: Types of Interactions
Looking for evidence of the quark-gluon plasma using particle accelerators, neutron stars and black holes orbiting a common center of gravity, groups and clusters of stars and galaxies offer both man-made and natural phenomena.
PS2.C: Stability and Instability in Physical Systems
Due to the balance of forces from expansion caused by nuclear fusion and the contraction caused by gravity, the Sun will remain stable for another 5 billion years. Whew!
PS3: Energy
Energy in its various forms are found in stars like the sun and throughout the universe such as heat, kinetic or mechanical, potential energy, radiant energy, light, electrical, and even dark energy.
PS3.A: Definitions of Energy
Various forms of energy are defined such as nuclear with the strong and weak forces, ionization, solar, and the repulsive force of dark energy.
PS3.B: Conservation of Energy and Energy Transfer
Since the Sun is our nearest role model, we look closely at solar “storms” and processes such as sunspots, flares, prominences, coronal mass ejections, etc.
PS3.C: Relationship Between Energy and Forces
The electrically charged particles carried by the solar wind “blow back” the tails of comets and interact with the magnet fields of the earth and other planets to produce aurorae (northern & southern lights).
PS3.D: Energy in Chemical Processes and Everyday Life
Only when the program includes Spaceship Earth: Our Global Environment.
PS4: Waves and Their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer
Sound waves traveling through plasma from a solar flare indicated that the Voyager I Spacecraft had reached interstellar space, a first in history.
PS4.B: Electromagnetic Radiation
In modern astronomy, space telescopes such as NASA’s 4 great observatories and the Solar Dynamics Observatory all serve to permit views of the sun and other celestial objects across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, all the way from radio waves to gamma rays, giving us much more data and information about these objects, including the physical laws that govern their motion.
PS4.C: Information Technologies and Instrumentation
Many of our spacecraft and probes, like Curiosity (named by a 6th grade female student) on Mars which has 10 scientific instruments, uses radio waves and computers to descramble signals coming from 35 million miles away.
Disciplinary Core Ideas in Life Science
LS1: From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes
Peering into a drop of pond water at a single celled animal like organism known as a paramecium, we probe down smaller into the cell nucleus, DNA, a carbon atom, protons & neutrons inside the nucleus, and quarks.
The following standards are addressed only when the program includes Spaceship Earth: Our Global Environment.
LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
LS2.A: Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems
LS2.B: Cycles of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems
LS2.C: Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience
LS2.D: Social Interactions and Group Behavior (This standard is also covered in a different program I offer about social insects such as wasps and conspecifics using an alarm pheromone to induce alarm type behavior in the colony.)
Disciplinary Core Ideas in Engineering, Technology, and the Application of Science
Many of our spacecraft and probes have helped us learn much more about distant planets, moons, asteroids and comets.
ETS1: Engineering Design
Solar panel arrays and lightweight composite materials enable us to travel far with little energy.
ETS1.A: Defining and Delimiting an Engineering Problem
Locating and spectroscopically analyzing only those exoplanets that orbit its parent star in our line of sight enables us to find them using a transit method.
ETS1.B: Developing Possible Solutions
When the bell curve from the light loss caused by a transiting exoplanet occurs 3 times in the same timeframe, it is usually accepted as a new planet candidate.
ETS1.C: Optimizing the Design Solution
Using a superheterodyne spectrometer, wind speeds on other planets have been measured.
ETS2: Links Among Engineering, Technology, Science, and Society
Pure science vs. applied science
ETS2.A: Interdependence of Science, Engineering, and Technology
Pure science allows us to employ our curiosity about the universe through investigations that bring answers to questions for its own sake, while applied science seeks to use that knowledge to create technologies to benefit mankind. The recent discovery that supports the reality of gravitational waves gives more credence to the work of Albert Einstein.
ETS2.B: Influence of Engineering, Technology, and Science on Society and the Natural World
Many experiments performed in space, such as aboard the space shuttle or International Space Station (ISS), have resulted with discoveries of things and ways of doing things that benefit us all. Even the view of the earth from space I show in my program motivates us to agree with the astronauts when they say how fragile and limited we really are on our home planet.
Crosscutting Concepts
Patterns
Observed patterns of forms and events guide organization and classification, and they prompt questions about relationships and the factors that influence them.
Such patterns are clearly observed in the Hubble classification of galaxies, stellar system formation, supernovae remnants, and the Fibonacci sequence.
Cause and Effect: Mechanism and Explanation
Events have causes, sometimes simple, sometimes multifaceted. A major activity of science is investigating and explaining causal relationships and the mechanisms by which they are mediated. Such mechanisms can then be tested across given contexts and used to predict and explain events in new contexts.
This is one of the foundations used in investigating the universe in all of astrophysics. The appearance of a nebula across different parts of the spectrum, for example, can tell much about how it was formed, how old it is, etc.
Scale, Proportion, and Quantity
In considering phenomena, it is critical to recognize what is relevant at different measures of size, time, and energy and to recognize how changes in scale, proportion, or quantity affect a system’s structure or performance.
Size & scale of the universe is all about this, and covers it from many different angles. The fabric of space-time is warped by massive clusters of galaxies, creating a gravitational “lens” that enables astronomers to observe very distant galaxies that formed in the early universe.
Systems and System Models
Defining the system under study—specifying its boundaries and making explicit a model of that system—provides tools for understanding and testing ideas that are applicable throughout science and engineering.
The Copernican Revolution vs. the Ptolemaic system created a paradigm shift from a geocentric to a heliocentric understanding of the solar system and universe. We are now beginning to understand the boundaries of the universe and where we are in relation to it.
Energy and Matter: Flows, Cycles, and Conservation
Tracking fluxes of energy and matter into, out of, and within systems helps one understand the systems’ possibilities and limitations.
The universe can be defined as the totality of all space, time, matter and energy, and observing what is happening in space gives many clues to changes in matter and energy over time. For example, a supernova (stellar explosion) will have ejecta in all directions, and the shock wave will create areas where new stars are born.
Structure and Function
The way in which an object or living thing is shaped and its substructure determine many of its properties and functions.
Cells have a nucleus, and so do atoms, as well as entire galaxies. Years ago astronomers thought about what came first, like the chicken or the egg, but applied to supermassive black holes. What came first, the galaxy or the supermassive black hole? It seems that the evidence points to coevolution, where both essentially form together about the same time, and each affects the other.
Stability and Change
For natural and built systems alike, conditions of stability and determinants of rates of change or evolution of a system are critical elements of study.
A steady state universe once held credence, only to yield to a very dynamic universe where constant change is the norm. During cosmic inflation, a period during the early formation of the universe following the Big Bang, matter traveled extremely fast, even faster than the speed of light.
Disciplinary Core Ideas in Earth and Space Science
ESS1: Earth’s Place in the Universe
Using an orrery and other digitally graphic mechanical models of the solar system, galaxy and universe, positions and motions according to the heliocentric model are represented.
ESS1.A: The Universe and Its Stars
Stellar birth, evolution, death, size, brightness, color, number and distribution are illustrated in a variety of ways, including their distances and patterns formed in the sky with asterisms and constellations.
ESS1.B: Earth and the Solar System
Comparative planetology with rocky worlds and gas giants, orbital dynamics, mass, size, moons, role of the sun, comets, meteors, asteroids and other solar system debris are addressed.
ESS1.C: The History of Planet Earth
From the perspective of its age and the formation of our solar system, we look at earth’s size, mass, heat and water.
ESS2: Earth’s Systems
We consider interactions between the Earth's atmosphere, hydrosphere, biosphere (depending on the program, we may identify environmental concerns on a global scale — as well as the impact of human societies on these components, and differentiate types of lighting and their effects on the night sky), the magnetosphere and the heliosphere.
ESS2.C: The Roles of Water in Earth’s Surface Processes
Astrogeology is applied examining tributaries and alluvial fans on Mars compared to the Earth.
The following standards are addressed only when the program includes Spaceship Earth: Our Global Environment.
ESS2.D: Weather and Climate
ESS3: Earth and Human Activity
ESS3.A: Natural Resources
ESS3.C: Human Impacts on Earth Systems
ESS3.D: Global Climate Change
Disciplinary Core Ideas in Physical Science
PS1: Matter and Its Interactions
Stellar system formation is analyzed and discussed regarding coalescence, gravity, protoplanetary discs, accretion, and conservation of momentum.
PS1.A: Structure and Properties of Matter
Atomic structure, human cells, neutron stars, nebulae, and even nonbaryonic forms of dark matter are described.
PS1.B: Chemical Reactions
Proton interactions in the solar wind, colors in nebulae and supernova remnants, especially using spectroscopy, reveal their reactivity and composition.
PS1.C: Nuclear Processes
Fusion in a star’s core causes it to burn and glow, heavier elements burn hotter causing expansion, and the heaviest elements are formed during supernovae explosions.
PS2: Motion and Stability: Forces and Interactions
Stellar life cycles, solar wind, and supernovae give many excellent examples.
PS2.A: Forces and Motion
Everything from the solar wind to rapidly rotating pulsars to acceleration in the expanding universe helps to develop a better understanding of forces and motion.
PS2.B: Types of Interactions
Looking for evidence of the quark-gluon plasma using particle accelerators, neutron stars and black holes orbiting a common center of gravity, groups and clusters of stars and galaxies offer both man-made and natural phenomena.
PS2.C: Stability and Instability in Physical Systems
Due to the balance of forces from expansion caused by nuclear fusion and the contraction caused by gravity, the Sun will remain stable for another 5 billion years. Whew!
PS3: Energy
Energy in its various forms are found in stars like the sun and throughout the universe such as heat, kinetic or mechanical, potential energy, radiant energy, light, electrical, and even dark energy.
PS3.A: Definitions of Energy
Various forms of energy are defined such as nuclear with the strong and weak forces, ionization, solar, and the repulsive force of dark energy.
PS3.B: Conservation of Energy and Energy Transfer
Since the Sun is our nearest role model, we look closely at solar “storms” and processes such as sunspots, flares, prominences, coronal mass ejections, etc.
PS3.C: Relationship Between Energy and Forces
The electrically charged particles carried by the solar wind “blow back” the tails of comets and interact with the magnet fields of the earth and other planets to produce aurorae (northern & southern lights).
PS3.D: Energy in Chemical Processes and Everyday Life
Only when the program includes Spaceship Earth: Our Global Environment.
PS4: Waves and Their Applications in Technologies for Information Transfer
Sound waves traveling through plasma from a solar flare indicated that the Voyager I Spacecraft had reached interstellar space, a first in history.
PS4.B: Electromagnetic Radiation
In modern astronomy, space telescopes such as NASA’s 4 great observatories and the Solar Dynamics Observatory all serve to permit views of the sun and other celestial objects across the entire electromagnetic spectrum, all the way from radio waves to gamma rays, giving us much more data and information about these objects, including the physical laws that govern their motion.
PS4.C: Information Technologies and Instrumentation
Many of our spacecraft and probes, like Curiosity (named by a 6th grade female student) on Mars which has 10 scientific instruments, uses radio waves and computers to descramble signals coming from 35 million miles away.
Disciplinary Core Ideas in Life Science
LS1: From Molecules to Organisms: Structures and Processes
Peering into a drop of pond water at a single celled animal like organism known as a paramecium, we probe down smaller into the cell nucleus, DNA, a carbon atom, protons & neutrons inside the nucleus, and quarks.
The following standards are addressed only when the program includes Spaceship Earth: Our Global Environment.
LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, Energy, and Dynamics
LS2.A: Interdependent Relationships in Ecosystems
LS2.B: Cycles of Matter and Energy Transfer in Ecosystems
LS2.C: Ecosystem Dynamics, Functioning, and Resilience
LS2.D: Social Interactions and Group Behavior (This standard is also covered in a different program I offer about social insects such as wasps and conspecifics using an alarm pheromone to induce alarm type behavior in the colony.)
Disciplinary Core Ideas in Engineering, Technology, and the Application of Science
Many of our spacecraft and probes have helped us learn much more about distant planets, moons, asteroids and comets.
ETS1: Engineering Design
Solar panel arrays and lightweight composite materials enable us to travel far with little energy.
ETS1.A: Defining and Delimiting an Engineering Problem
Locating and spectroscopically analyzing only those exoplanets that orbit its parent star in our line of sight enables us to find them using a transit method.
ETS1.B: Developing Possible Solutions
When the bell curve from the light loss caused by a transiting exoplanet occurs 3 times in the same timeframe, it is usually accepted as a new planet candidate.
ETS1.C: Optimizing the Design Solution
Using a superheterodyne spectrometer, wind speeds on other planets have been measured.
ETS2: Links Among Engineering, Technology, Science, and Society
Pure science vs. applied science
ETS2.A: Interdependence of Science, Engineering, and Technology
Pure science allows us to employ our curiosity about the universe through investigations that bring answers to questions for its own sake, while applied science seeks to use that knowledge to create technologies to benefit mankind. The recent discovery that supports the reality of gravitational waves gives more credence to the work of Albert Einstein.
ETS2.B: Influence of Engineering, Technology, and Science on Society and the Natural World
Many experiments performed in space, such as aboard the space shuttle or International Space Station (ISS), have resulted with discoveries of things and ways of doing things that benefit us all. Even the view of the earth from space I show in my program motivates us to agree with the astronauts when they say how fragile and limited we really are on our home planet.
Crosscutting Concepts
Patterns
Observed patterns of forms and events guide organization and classification, and they prompt questions about relationships and the factors that influence them.
Such patterns are clearly observed in the Hubble classification of galaxies, stellar system formation, supernovae remnants, and the Fibonacci sequence.
Cause and Effect: Mechanism and Explanation
Events have causes, sometimes simple, sometimes multifaceted. A major activity of science is investigating and explaining causal relationships and the mechanisms by which they are mediated. Such mechanisms can then be tested across given contexts and used to predict and explain events in new contexts.
This is one of the foundations used in investigating the universe in all of astrophysics. The appearance of a nebula across different parts of the spectrum, for example, can tell much about how it was formed, how old it is, etc.
Scale, Proportion, and Quantity
In considering phenomena, it is critical to recognize what is relevant at different measures of size, time, and energy and to recognize how changes in scale, proportion, or quantity affect a system’s structure or performance.
Size & scale of the universe is all about this, and covers it from many different angles. The fabric of space-time is warped by massive clusters of galaxies, creating a gravitational “lens” that enables astronomers to observe very distant galaxies that formed in the early universe.
Systems and System Models
Defining the system under study—specifying its boundaries and making explicit a model of that system—provides tools for understanding and testing ideas that are applicable throughout science and engineering.
The Copernican Revolution vs. the Ptolemaic system created a paradigm shift from a geocentric to a heliocentric understanding of the solar system and universe. We are now beginning to understand the boundaries of the universe and where we are in relation to it.
Energy and Matter: Flows, Cycles, and Conservation
Tracking fluxes of energy and matter into, out of, and within systems helps one understand the systems’ possibilities and limitations.
The universe can be defined as the totality of all space, time, matter and energy, and observing what is happening in space gives many clues to changes in matter and energy over time. For example, a supernova (stellar explosion) will have ejecta in all directions, and the shock wave will create areas where new stars are born.
Structure and Function
The way in which an object or living thing is shaped and its substructure determine many of its properties and functions.
Cells have a nucleus, and so do atoms, as well as entire galaxies. Years ago astronomers thought about what came first, like the chicken or the egg, but applied to supermassive black holes. What came first, the galaxy or the supermassive black hole? It seems that the evidence points to coevolution, where both essentially form together about the same time, and each affects the other.
Stability and Change
For natural and built systems alike, conditions of stability and determinants of rates of change or evolution of a system are critical elements of study.
A steady state universe once held credence, only to yield to a very dynamic universe where constant change is the norm. During cosmic inflation, a period during the early formation of the universe following the Big Bang, matter traveled extremely fast, even faster than the speed of light.