In this Rosie Labs guide you will find:
- Productive struggle opportunities for students during their project build,
- Lesson objectives and concept overview,
- Optional STEM topic video to share with participants,
- Step-by-step instructions and video of the Rosie Riveters’ Constellation Cards Project,
- Optional STEM activities to further explore the objectives and concepts used in the project build.
Objective
Constellation Cards introduces students to astronomy by learning about the role of constellations in navigation.
Concept Overview and Experiment Inspiration
Have you ever wondered how explorers navigate (travel) using the stars? It’s not as difficult as you may think. The night sky is made up of many different stars, which are huge spheres (like a ball) of super hot hydrogen and helium in space. Explorers long ago looked up to the sky and connected stars together, imagining pictures in the sky. These patterns that they imagined by connecting groups of stars together are called constellations. Constellations were named after objects, animals, and people long ago. You can think of constellations like a game of connect-the-dots, where when you draw a line between the stars you form an image. Some constellations you may know are the Little Dipper and the Big Dipper, which look like spoons in the sky.
So how did explorers navigate the world without the use of modern technology? Explorers came to understand the Earth and their locations on Earth through understanding the night sky and the constellations they could see. In particular, they relied on one important star named Polaris. Polaris, which is also called the North Star, is located at the very top of our planet, right above the North Pole. It is technically three stars but our eye just sees the one star! Polaris makes up the very end of the handle in The Little Dipper and is part of the larger constellation, Ursa Minor (or the little bear!) While most stars appear to move throughout the sky at night, like the sun does during the day, Polaris stays in the same place. It is a perfect tool for navigation, because once you can find Polaris, you can use it as a reference to organize the rest of the sky and more easily locate the other directions of South, West and East.
Science Goals
- Astronomy is the study of the objects beyond the Earth’s atmosphere
- Constellations are pictures in the sky that have helped humans navigate the Earth for centuries
- Polaris is a three-star system that sits at the top of the Earth and is the most important navigation reference
Vocabulary
Astronomy – the science of all of the objects beyond the Earth’s atmosphere
Constellation – a group of stars that form a pattern that can look like objects, animals or people
Polaris – Also known as the North Star, it is actually a triple star system that sits at the very top of the Earth, above the North Pole. It is the brightest star in the constellation Ursa Minor.