The Comet's Tale - cse.ssl.berkeley.edu

The Comet's Tale

Lesson Plan

Lesson Profile: General Subject: Astronomy Grades: 5-8
Topic: Comets

Key Questions:
What are the origins and nature of comets?
Do they have any effect on Earth and its inhabitants?

Learning Objectives:
• History human understanding about comets
• Physical origin and composition of comets
• Comet "anatomy" and processes near the sun
• The theory that a huge comet or meteor hit the earth as the cause the
extinction of the dinosaurs.

Guiding Document:
National Science Education Standards (NSES) for grades 5-8:

Science as Inquiry
Physical Science
Life Science
Earth and Space Science
Science in Personal and Social Perspectives
History and Nature of Science

Other content areas:
Mass extinctions, History of science

Materials and Requirements:
• For Web module:
○ Browser enabled computers with Internet connection, OR
○ Networked computers with access to a local server loaded with the site.
○ Copies of student worksheets.
• For Make a Comet activity:
○ Ingredients and assembly tools for comets.

○ Printed instructions and narrative for "Make A Comet" activity can help
you guide the activity. PDF file | HTML file

○ Safety equipment: Insulated gloves and safety glasses for working with
dry ice.

Printable Materials:
Astronomer Review Sheets to print:

o Comet History (HTML or PDF); answer key: HTML or PDF
o Comet Origins (HTML or PDF); answer key: HTML or PDF
o Comet Characteristics (HTML or PDF); answer key: HTML or PDF
o Comet Orbits (HTML or PDF); answer key: HTML or PDF

Additional Homework Tasks:
o Predict a Comet's Return: HTML or PDF; answer key: HTML or PDF
o Student writing activity (Students tell what they know about comets: what
comets are, where they come from, and what they are made of): HTML or
PDF: answer key: HTML or PDF
o Comets Are/Comets Aren't: HTML or PDF.

Student Reader:
Access and print out copies of NASA News stories on comets, meteors, and
asteroids fort supplemental student reading. Links to year 2000 comet news
(HTML). NOTE: This page contains links to the NASA science news site.

Extra on Math:
How Long is a Long Period? With answer key: HTML or PDF.

Comets Vocabulary Puzzles and Game:
Puzzle I: Search for listed words in a matrix

o Word search:MSWord, PDF, or JPEG(121 kb)
o Answer key:MSWord, PDF, or JPEG(131 kb)

Puzzle II: Solve clues, then search for words
o Solve word clues: MSWord, PDF, or HTML
o Word answer key: MSWord, PDF, or HTML
o Word search: PDF, or JPEG(102 kb)
o Search answer key: PDF, or JPEG(108 kb)

"Jeopardy" Flashcard Game:
o Flashcards MSWord, PDF, or HTML
o Instructions MsWord, PDF, or HTML

Background Reading:
Written for this lesson: background: history, Origins;
background II: characteristics, orbits, and current comet news
background III: Killer Comets?

The background reading pages aim to help instructors who may be new to

teaching about comets, or who would like a better grasp of some underlying

concepts. They also include some links to other Web materials that focus on

specific sub-topics, so you may want to plan to read them on the computer

before printing. These pages do not constitute a thorough or quantitative

treatment of the subject, but are intended to place comets in the broader field of

solar system astronomy, which is a very lively area of current research. We hope

they will also help prepare you to help your students investigate answers

to their questions.

From NASA: year 2000 comet news (Search other years by keywords, like those
in red on this page) These stories can also be printed out to make a great
student Reader for supplemental study. Many are available as sound files for
sight-impaired users.

Other comet and related sites: Comet Links Pages

Teaching Tips:
Preparation: It is recommended that teachers go through all relevant areas of
"The Comet's Tale" prior to presenting it to the class. The Background Reading
pages were written with this lesson in mind, and are recommended also. The
additional sites in the Comet Links Pages can help expand knowledge in various
sub-areas. An extensive glossary of comet-related terms is accessible from
every page on the student site.

Technical: If Internet connection time is a problem, it is advisable to load the
entire site either onto the presenting computer (if using a projector) or onto a

local server site, if possible. If your school has a Web page of its own, then you
have a local server. Ask your technical assistant for help. This enables Web
browsers to access images from a local hard disk, instead of relying on a school
district network, which may be carrying a lot of traffic. It takes about 20
minutes to load all the pages of "The Comet's Tale" over a 28.8kbps modem, not
including Audio and Video.

Student Prerequisites: Students should be familiar with basic aspects of the
solar system, names of planets, and "geography." Although the student pages
are self-contained and simple to navigate, remember that novice Web users will
need more time. Common Vocabulary: The non-astronomy vocabulary of this
lesson should be appropriate to 6th grade. However, work with a group of 6th
grade English Language Learners indicates some words will probably be new to
some students. Instructors may want to do "vocabulary forecasting" by putting
up a list of the new words students may encounter in each part of the lesson.
Some of these words also appear in the Astronomer Review worksheets,
Homework Tasks, and flash cards.

Challenging Words: HTML or PDF

Sequence: The site has been organized to progress from engaging images to the

what, how and why of comets. The Gallery will introduce students to stunning

comet images from recent years, many within their lifetimes. Its purpose is to

engage students, and help them see comets as a subject of current interest.

Items of current interest are also interspersed in other sections: the end of

History, Origins, and Orbits.

The History section is meant to alert students to some of the important
questions about comets--what are they, where do they come from, what are
they made of, and how do they behave?--and the working of the scientific
process. Encourage students to examine their own existing ideas as they read
the embedded questions in the History pages. They may find some of their own
notions are more sophisticated than ideas from earlier centuries, or that they
have big gaps of gray uncertainty. Self-awareness is the first goal, but they may
need to be reassured they are not expected to have the "answers" yet.

The order of the main sections can be discretionary to some degree. The Orbits
section relies on the concepts of the Origins section. The Characteristics section
benefits from considering comet composition in the comet-making activity and
the game beforehand. These two caveats suggest at least two other ways to
organize the material (not including the "Killer Comets" Section):

1. Gallery, History, Origins, Orbits, Make a Comet, Play the Game, Their Place
in Space

2. Gallery, History, Make a Comet, Play the Game, Their Place in Space,
Origins, Orbits

The worksheets for the text sections are tools for students to continue
identifying and recording their mental images (models) and understandings of
text. The material in the worksheet answer keys consists mostly of concept
statements, not accurate examples of how students may be able to express
these ideas, or rigid requirements for everything they should write.

Material in the background reading, such as how comet orbits are believed to
evolve can be shared with more advanced classes, depending on the time
available.

The Killer Comets section may be too advanced in concept and vocabulary for
some students. It assumes some acquaintance with geologic dating from strata,
and some physical and life science.

Class Management: While students can do a self-paced tour of the lesson and
answer the "Astronomer Review" worksheet questions, small group work or peer
evaluation of some tasks can give students exposure to each others' ideas. The
sectional organization of the site may also lend itself well to the "jigsaw" peer-
instruction technique; have each of several small groups become experts on one
section, then present to the class. Use a computer projection system, if one is
available, for group work.

Students can do extra activities while waiting for computers to become available,
but the comet-making should be done by the entire class. It can be
accomplished in an hour, with the right preparation. See the tips in the narration
sheet.

Other Activities: The "extra task" worksheets may be assigned for at-home
study as they do not require use of the Web site.

Do the "Comets are/Comets aren't" exercise after the history section, to record
students existing knowledge and beliefs. Then repeat after the "Place in Space"
section for review or assessment. You can use it for homework by having
students make their own lists at home, then bring them in to share. When
discussing what comets are and aren't, review more material by allowing lots of
facts and ideas rather than just nouns. For example, Comets Are: made mostly
of frozen gas, like big dirty snowballs, orbiting the Sun, very old. Comets Aren't:
made of rock, always on fire, orbiting the earth, still being created, or
mostly in the Oort Cloud.

The page of links to recent news about NASA comet research can provide
background on what is happening with recent comet and asteroid observations
and space missions.

Vocabulary drill puzzles can be used for at-home, or quiet self-study. Puzzle II
has two stages: first, students use clues and the number of letters to figure out
the list of terms. Then they search for these words in a letter matrix, as with
Puzzle I. Teachers may assign all or part of this puzzle, which can be completed
in stages by students, according to time and pace of the lesson.

The flash card set can be used for a participatory "Jeopardy" game (see
instructions). When playing in class, many of the "answer" cards interlink with
the content of others, so students may be able to get more of the questions and
assimilate more material the second time through the deck.

Meteorites in the rain barrel: In the Educator's Guide to Micrometeorites, the
solar system experts at NASA's JPL laboratory share an easy method for
collecting meteorites that anyone can use. Your students might like to collect
some and look at them under a microscope. Do they look the same as
specimens from Earth?

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ShockWave plug-in from Macromedia, needed only to listen to ShockWave audio
in the Make a Comet section, please follow this link and download the
ShockWave player files suggested for your computer.

Adobe Acrobat* Reader can be used to download many of the worksheets and
other printable materials with nicer page breaks and formatting than printing
HTML.