Chapter 7: Astronomy Seen in a New Light: Visualizations for Teaching Elementary and Middle School Students

In our work with elementary and middle school students, as well as preservice and in-service teachers, we’ve created sustained opportunities for learner interactions with a variety of visualizations over multiple instructional sessions. Essentially, we actively involved and supported teachers to provide multiple representation experiences for their students that explore astronomy with the primary goal of students developing deeper understandings of the underlying science content (Young, Guy, Farnsworth, & Grabe, 2012). The same visualization representations used with elementary and middle level students are also integrated into our science methods courses on campus with pre-service teachers.

This chapter will describe our use of a variety of visualizations in teaching conceptual astronomy focused on sun-earth-moon system, solar system, and constellations implemented through two grant projects. The first is Beyond Earth, funded by the National Science Foundation and the second is SITE—Simulation Immersion in Teacher Education supported through state and local university funding. Our target audience is elementary and middle level students, as well as the pre-service and in-service teachers who work with these students. For purposes of organizing this chapter, visualizations are divided into three representation categories: (1) static diagrams; (2) two-dimensional and three-dimensional (2D & 3D) dynamic representations; and (3) three-dimensional (3D) models.