Meet Neil DeGrasse Tyson
Space STEM activities are out of this world. If you haven’t asked your students this spacey question yet,”Who is Neil DeGrasse Tyson?”…. you need to right away! I can’t believe I just recently became aware of this wonderfully extraordinary human being. You know how you get asked, “If you could spend a day with anyone, dead or alive, who would it be?” This is my pick…. 100%! Neil has this Morgan Freeman way of speaking about the Universe. He is an astrophysicist that has been giving lectures since the age of 14, but I completely understand him! He has this wonderful ability to take data analysis on the audience he is speaking to so that his message is captivating. Children and students of all ages will fall in love with the stars after listening to Neil. Fall in love yourself right here with Neil DeGrasse Tyson in his Let Kids Be Kids Speech.
Space Themed STEM Activities: Literature
The #1 way that I introduce people into my classroom is through literature. I have two books to share with you: Look Up With Me: Neil DeGrasse Tyson, A Life Among the Stars and Starstruck: The Cosmic Journey of Neil DeGrasse Tyson both are equally engaging. The first is my favorite. They both share the same story, however, the first is done with less text and takes less time to read. For younger students, this is great for attention spans. For older students, this is also great due to the amount of time teachers in upper elementary have with students. I am commenting only on read-aloud situations. They are both wonderful reads. An upper elementary student would enjoy the second book to read before the first in most cases.
Outer Space STEM Activities: Vocabulary
You have just answered the question: Who is Neil DeGrasse Tyson? Now what? We explore the Universe!!! Remember though…. you are a teacher of everything! We should read about him, use new vocabulary, comprehend what we read, and be inspired to do more. After a story, I like to use Cloze reads and share new important vocabulary. No more than 4 vocabulary words should ever be shared in my opinion. We want to focus on those. Of course, there will be other words that we have to use context clues for to grab meaning, but what new words do we really want to swallow whole?
I like to incorporate vocabulary that benefits the content, as well as, character education vocabulary when we study real people. I want them to know something about this person that made them successful so that they might also adopt it as one of their own character traits. For this book study, I also used the words: telescope and Universe. The following images will give ideas of the other ways I incorporate ELA.
STEM Heroes Space Exploration
Neil’s philosophy on children is to let them be kids. Let them wonder. Let them be curious. What better way to get them curious than by letting them make guided observations of the sky. When I say guided, I mean they need a little direction. For them to have questions that cause them to examine phenoms, we need to give a little guidance. I like to let them do sky observations, but ask them to do it over a period of 3-6 weeks during the same time daily and nightly once a week. What should they notice? Something happens in the sky. Even though we are looking at the same time, oh, and in the same direction, the sky should look different. So why is that? That’s the question you want to come from this experiment.
Yes… we can’t forget. They need to be documenting what they see when they look at the sky. Now we are teaching the skills of a scientist.
Go see for yourself, if you haven’t already, just how awesome Neil DeGrasse Tyson is. Answer that question with your students: Who is Neil DeGrasse Tyson? Get them interested in his stories and books. Create a love for literature and science at the same time!
Interested in my Neil DeGrasse Tyson Unit. Check out All About Neil DeGrasse Tyson with this link! He is a part of my iHeartSTEAM Series.
Find more activities like this in my blog about Temple Grandin. She is another must teach for the classroom person!
Do you need help in the classroom creating a STEM/STEAM Project-Based Learning Format? Check out my free guide to The Ultimate Project-Based Learning Classroom.
