TOPIC SIGNUP IS HERE:

CONGRATULATIONS: You are herewith and henceforth requested and required to be an astronomy teacher for a day (it's only a 5 minute day though)

REQUIREMENTS: Find a CONCEPT or TOPIC that you want to share with your students. The goal here is to pretend you are a teacher (YAY)!

Of course that means you'll have to write a lesson plan for your students on a topic that you find very interesting about astronomy.

CONTENT AREA: Absolutely any credible concept in astronomy that you find interesting and you think will interest your students. Best projects will focus on a particular object somewhere in the Universe (for example "The Bug Nebula") as opposed to general topic areas (Nebulae)

CONTENT TYPE: Your lesson plan MUST contain the following:

1) An Opening Question to help "bridge" your student's current nowledge with the concept you'll be presenting that day.

2) A Learning Target: State in student friendly terms what your learning goal for your students will be. For example: "I will be able to describe how time changes near the wolgie1234 black hold after today's class."

3) Words O' the Day: Vocab (with definitions of just 2 or 3 new words that you're students will need to know by the end of your lesson.

4) Your Lesson: Present a 4 - 5 minute presentation to teach your students about your object. Avoid throwing facts and figures at your audience... you'll put us to sleep.

Powerpoints are allowed but can only have 5 words per slide (I'm quite serious about that. I'll actually have you sit down if you paste a bunch of text on the screen and then read it to us).

Remember, if you find something that you think is interesting, the chances are WE will think it's interesting too.

Imagine you've just returned to a really cool trip to somewhere far away and you can't wait to tell your friends about it. How would you go about doing that in the most compelling way?

OR

Recollect a particularly interesting/thoughtful lesson that you've had here in astronomy or any other time in your school career so far. Tailor that to fit your 4-5 minute teaching time.

5) Closing Question or Activity

This should be written in your lesson plan but not actually conducted during your 4-5 minute teaching time. It is included as a way to make sure your students have learned that one thing you wanted them to learn during your brief time teaching. Thought provoking, open-ended questions are best:

"If you had a chance to visit the Wolgie1234 black hole knowing that time would change by 150 years for you, would you still go?"

Simple questions that simply test for remembering are NOT encouraged.