kfeusse Posted March 11, 2017 Share Posted March 11, 2017 My son wants to study astronomy for science next year. The ones I have found aren't all astronomy...they are also weather and other earth science topics. Are there any programs that would be a year long astronomy course? I would greatly prefer that they be Christian based. Do I have any options? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmstranger Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 Apologia has an Astronomy book. I haven't used it, but I think it's elementary level, not middle school. I imagine you could use it as a spine and add additional reading or something to bulk it up some. Sorry, I haven't seen anything else, so hopefully someone else will have some good resources for you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scoutingmom Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 How about this? http://www.lampposthomeschool.com/science/signs-seasons-classical-astronomy/ Sent from my SM-T530NU using Tapatalk 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HollyDay Posted March 12, 2017 Share Posted March 12, 2017 We used BJU's Earth and Space. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KeriJ Posted March 14, 2017 Share Posted March 14, 2017 (edited) We are doing a combination of H.A. Rey's The Stars, Exploring the World of Astronomy by Tiner, sitting in on family lessons from the astronomy unit of Science in the Beginning, and some other living books and documentaries. We started with Signs and Seasons, but have switched to what I listed above, and it's going better. Edited March 15, 2017 by KeriJ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sixpence1978 Posted March 14, 2017 Share Posted March 14, 2017 I thought this one looked interesting, but haven't used it myself. It's an online course: http://experienceastronomy.com/ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Random Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 Memoria Press uses Tiner's book, grades 6-8: https://www.memoriapress.com/curriculum/science/exploring-the-world-of-astronomy-set/ We haven't used Tiner's astronomy book, but the physics books was really interesting! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kfeusse Posted March 15, 2017 Author Share Posted March 15, 2017 Memoria Press uses Tiner's book, grades 6-8: https://www.memoriapress.com/curriculum/science/exploring-the-world-of-astronomy-set/ We haven't used Tiner's astronomy book, but the physics books was really interesting! where can I see an inside view of these books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tmstranger Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 where can I see an inside view of these books. I found samples on ChristianBook. Not sure why they didn't have them on the Memoria Press site. https://www.christianbook.com/exploring-the-world-of-astronomy/john-tiner/9780890517871/pd/517871?event=ESRCP Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverMoon Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 (edited) . Edited September 5, 2023 by SilverMoon Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Garga Posted March 15, 2017 Share Posted March 15, 2017 (edited) I'm teaching astronomy to my 9th grader this year. I doubt you'll want to do everything I'm doing, but here are my notes from my planning pages of what we're doing this year. You can pull out any ideas you like from if it they fit your needs. You probably will want to check out the activities we've done. They've all been great, except for the spectroscope which didn't work. But my son wants to fiddle with it a bit more and see if he did something wrong and can get it working (it's just a cardboard box with a reflective CD on the inside and a hole on the side for light to shine through.) As someone else said, if you consider getting a Great Course, wait for the one you want to go on sale. I've never bought a course at less than 70% off. They go on sale All The Time. Every week a new set are on sale, and at various times in the year, they're ALL on sale at the same time. For the Great Course "Understanding the Universe" you can also get the textbook written by the teacher for it. We didn't bother with the textbook for our class. Great Course: Understanding the Universe by Filippenko: 96 lectures--answer the questions Great Course: Our night sky Plumb for ideas of what to go out and see at night Local Astronomical Society Meetings (monthly) Attend 9-10 meetings Book: Death by Black Hole Find thesis of each of each article, jot down 2 interesting things in each. Book: Contact Read for fun Book: Rocket Boys Then Movie: October Sky Read for fun then watch the movie that was based on the book Book: The Stars, by H.A. Rey Go outside and observe with telescope My son was supposed to go outside every night for a month and fill in a calendar page with the phases of the moon. We tried it for two different months and each month he'd forget to go out after about 10 days into the project and I got tired of reminding him, so it never was finished. It was a nice idea, though... Below are the activities we've done/will do this year. There are only 2 we haven't done (charting a star's magnitude and looking at sunspots using the shadow of the sun cast by a telescope.) These are my own personal, messy notes that I made to myself. I just cut and pasted them here, so the're not refined for someone else to read, but here they are: 1*Phases of the moon (here's a video showing how we could do it. Another one suggests doing it outside when the moon is visible in the daytime.) In room with lamp one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wz01pTvuMa0 Daytime one: http://astrosociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/DaytimeMoon.pdf Phases of the moon: how you can see a new moon at night. https://www.khanacademy.org/partner-content/nasa/measuringuniverse/spacemath1/p/animate-phases-of-the-moon 2*If the entire hx of the universe was represented as a calendar, then when did certain events occur: http://www.astrosociety.org/edu/astro/act2/H2_Cosmic_Calendar.pdf 3*Remember the egg. Teaches the eye to look for variations on smooth white surfaces. http://www.astrosociety.org/education/remember-the-egg/ 4*Light pollution (will look at the same constellation at different places to see if they can see more of the stars when it's darker. http://www.astrosociety.org/edu/publications/tnl/44/lightpoll4.html#4 5*Maybe: chart how a star's magnitude gets brighter and dimmer over a month of time. http://www.astrosociety.org/edu/publications/tnl/32/starscience3.html 6*High school level crater demonstrations. Need a bunch of supplies--may be difficult to find. http://www.astrosociety.org/edu/publications/tnl/23/crater2.html ENDED UP using flour and hot chocolate mix, marbles, and three other balls (ping pong, rubber, golf) without a slingshot. Just dropped the balls into the flour filled pan and made the observations. The supplies in the above link were a headache to find. 7*How high is space? Calculate and make a drawing to actual scale. http://www.astrosociety.org/edu/activities/I11_How_High_Space.pdf 8* Show a scale of how big the planets are and far the planets are from each other Will take miles or parts of miles of length: (LARGE) http://www.exploratorium.edu/ronh/solar_system/index.html Amazon link to feet measuring wheel so know how far to walk between planets. https://www.amazon.com/1000FT-Walking-Counter-Survey-Measuring/dp/B004L181E6/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8 FOR THE ABOVE: we did the Large version. First we drew a sun in chalk on the ground that was 10 foot in diameter and then filled in the planets to scale (they were tiny) inside our chalk drawing of the sun. Then we drew a sun that was only 5 inches across and walked about 1/4 mile, plotting how far the planets would be from the sun, to scale. This was a favorite. If you want to keep the scale smaller, then these are smaller options: Using 1 meter of paper. (SMALL) http://astrosociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/PocketSolarSystem.pdf *Show a scale of how far the planets are from each other using a 200 sheet roll of TP (MEDIUM) http://www.astrosociety.org/edu/family/materials/toiletpaper.pdf 9*See sunspots. Use tracing paper to see how they change over a period of time. http://astrosociety.org/edu/publications/tnl/05/stars2.html 10*Make a pan cookie using chocolate chips to create constellations from a template of actual constellations. http://www.astrosociety.org/edu/family/materials/constellationcookies.pdf 11*Build our own spectroscope http://www.livescience.com/41548-spectroscopy-science-fair-project.html NOTE: This one was a flop for us. 12*Make another astrolabe (or find in the bin downstairs.) http://cse.ssl.berkeley.edu/AtHomeAstronomy/activity_07.html Edited March 15, 2017 by Garga 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kfeusse Posted March 15, 2017 Author Share Posted March 15, 2017 WOW!!! thanks for this. You are right, it's probably too much for my guy...but there are certainly some things we can pull from your list. thanks so much!!!!!!!!!!!!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverMoon Posted March 16, 2017 Share Posted March 16, 2017 Garga, thanks for sharing! I totally tucked that away for ideas. ♥ Speaking of activities, my current 8th grader has been using Astronomy for All Ages through BYL 8's history of science this year and it's one of his favorite resources. It has GOBS of hands on projects and activities that are useful and worth spending time on. https://www.amazon.com/Astronomy-All-Ages-Discovering-Activities/dp/0762708093 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.