fsgregs
09-02-2008, 03:53 PM
Hi everyone. I am new to the forum. :)
I am a high school Science teacher in VA. When my administrator first asked me to teach Astronomy, I refused. I had no way to get my kids out of the classroom and up into space. Who wants to learn about the magic of the universe while staring at me lecturing?
That is when I discovered an amazing FREE computer program for the PC named Celestia.
Celestia is a high-resolution space simulation program that takes you into the virtual world of space. When you open it, you are in orbit high above Earth, piloting your own hyperdrive spacecraft. The computer screen is your ship window. Earth turns below you, the sky is filled with stars and galaxies, and over 50 spacecraft populate the solar system.
What is so cool about Celestia is its ability to interact with the cosmos. Press your ship throttle and you will begin to move through space, at any speed, in any direction and at any time in history. The images are exceptional. The graphics are such high-resolution that NASA and ESA use Celestia internally in their mission control rooms.
You can command your ship to fly down to Earth, enter our atmosphere, fly under the clouds, over cities and mountains, and land on the surface. You can fly to the moon next to Apollo 11 in 1969 as it prepares to land in the Sea of Tranquility. You can fly through the rings of Saturn, visit a Red Supergiant star, orbit a rotating Black Hole or be there to see how close the asteroid Apophis comes to Earth in 2029. You can fly beyond the Milky Way or travel forward in time to witness the end of Earth billions of years from now
Obviously, I recognized its potential and realized I could use the program two ways. First, I could load the program on my teaching computer, connect it to an LCD Projector, and use it to fly to different locales. I did this and was able to display Celestia to my class and take them to some neat places. The downside was that they were still in their seats ... listening to me.
The 2nd approach was to load Celestia on a set of computers in a lab, and allow an entire class to take their own journeys into Celestia space.
I felt this would be much more enjoyable so I tried it out with my Earth Science class. My students really liked it, but it had problems. I had to constantly speak, give them directions on what keys to press, then lecture about what they were seeing. There was a lot of distraction.
Instead, I wrote a guided "tour" of Celestia space using MS Word. I included step by step instructions for how to operate the program, plus a detailed written lesson about the places they were visiting. They could read it and learn at their own pace. I also provided a written worksheet to complete.
It was a BIG HIT! My students loved going at their own pace without constantly listening to me yelling out instructions.
The guided tour was placed on the main Celestia website by its developers for others to use. They also invited me to join their development group to create additional lesson plans using this amazing program.
Shortly thereafter, NASA discovered my guided tour and realized its value. I was invited by NASA to develop a whole series of journeys through Celestia space. Unfortunately, that was not simple to do. At the time, there was still very few custom add-ons for the program. It is one thing to develop a tour of the Life Cycle of Stars, but another to realize you have no protostars, pulsars, black holes or nebula to take visitors to.
I began working with NASA and gifted designers in the volunteer Celestia development group to develop new add-ons for the educational activities. It took two years!
Today, a total of 12 separate detailed lesson plan journeys through space have been developed and are updated yearly for use in school computer labs. Students are given a chance to visit the Solar System, go deep into space, examine spacecraft up close, travel to the edge of the universe, learn the complete life cycle of stars or travel into the future to see Mars become a terraformed world of cities and oceans.
My course has become the most popular in my high school. Through the generous contributions of dozens of graphics artists and add-on developers in the Celestia community, the 12 lessons in the Celestia Educational Activities series now approach the level of a Star Wars movie in sophistication. They require over 1.4 Gigabytes of data, contain close to 400 destinations, teach many of the major topics in Astronomy in detail, and do one thing really really well ... ;) ... they get kids out of the classroom and up into space! Students love these lessons and consistently earn high grades in the subject areas they get to see. The Activities are now in use in hundreds of school districts around the world.
Teachers love the Activities also, since they do not have to teach that topic (the lesson plan does that), the worksheets can be graded separately then used as study guides, and most important ... your students think you're so cool :cool: for letting them fly through space on a school day.
All of the Activities can be downloaded one at a time for free, or can be obtained on self-installing CD set or DVD for a minimal fee. They are available on these two sites:
http://gregs-educational.info
http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/educational.php
I can honestly say that the use of Celestia via these Activities has transformed my high school Astronomy course from a room with a teacher, some videos and a blackboard, into a high-tech space simulation experience far more exciting than anything these kids have ever experienced in a school. In part because of my use of Celestia, I have won numerous awards for excellence in science teaching.
I urge you to give your kids the opportunity to explore space in person! Feel free to email me for advice or comments. Enjoy!
Frank Gregorio
Frank
I am a high school Science teacher in VA. When my administrator first asked me to teach Astronomy, I refused. I had no way to get my kids out of the classroom and up into space. Who wants to learn about the magic of the universe while staring at me lecturing?
That is when I discovered an amazing FREE computer program for the PC named Celestia.
Celestia is a high-resolution space simulation program that takes you into the virtual world of space. When you open it, you are in orbit high above Earth, piloting your own hyperdrive spacecraft. The computer screen is your ship window. Earth turns below you, the sky is filled with stars and galaxies, and over 50 spacecraft populate the solar system.
What is so cool about Celestia is its ability to interact with the cosmos. Press your ship throttle and you will begin to move through space, at any speed, in any direction and at any time in history. The images are exceptional. The graphics are such high-resolution that NASA and ESA use Celestia internally in their mission control rooms.
You can command your ship to fly down to Earth, enter our atmosphere, fly under the clouds, over cities and mountains, and land on the surface. You can fly to the moon next to Apollo 11 in 1969 as it prepares to land in the Sea of Tranquility. You can fly through the rings of Saturn, visit a Red Supergiant star, orbit a rotating Black Hole or be there to see how close the asteroid Apophis comes to Earth in 2029. You can fly beyond the Milky Way or travel forward in time to witness the end of Earth billions of years from now
Obviously, I recognized its potential and realized I could use the program two ways. First, I could load the program on my teaching computer, connect it to an LCD Projector, and use it to fly to different locales. I did this and was able to display Celestia to my class and take them to some neat places. The downside was that they were still in their seats ... listening to me.
The 2nd approach was to load Celestia on a set of computers in a lab, and allow an entire class to take their own journeys into Celestia space.
I felt this would be much more enjoyable so I tried it out with my Earth Science class. My students really liked it, but it had problems. I had to constantly speak, give them directions on what keys to press, then lecture about what they were seeing. There was a lot of distraction.
Instead, I wrote a guided "tour" of Celestia space using MS Word. I included step by step instructions for how to operate the program, plus a detailed written lesson about the places they were visiting. They could read it and learn at their own pace. I also provided a written worksheet to complete.
It was a BIG HIT! My students loved going at their own pace without constantly listening to me yelling out instructions.
The guided tour was placed on the main Celestia website by its developers for others to use. They also invited me to join their development group to create additional lesson plans using this amazing program.
Shortly thereafter, NASA discovered my guided tour and realized its value. I was invited by NASA to develop a whole series of journeys through Celestia space. Unfortunately, that was not simple to do. At the time, there was still very few custom add-ons for the program. It is one thing to develop a tour of the Life Cycle of Stars, but another to realize you have no protostars, pulsars, black holes or nebula to take visitors to.
I began working with NASA and gifted designers in the volunteer Celestia development group to develop new add-ons for the educational activities. It took two years!
Today, a total of 12 separate detailed lesson plan journeys through space have been developed and are updated yearly for use in school computer labs. Students are given a chance to visit the Solar System, go deep into space, examine spacecraft up close, travel to the edge of the universe, learn the complete life cycle of stars or travel into the future to see Mars become a terraformed world of cities and oceans.
My course has become the most popular in my high school. Through the generous contributions of dozens of graphics artists and add-on developers in the Celestia community, the 12 lessons in the Celestia Educational Activities series now approach the level of a Star Wars movie in sophistication. They require over 1.4 Gigabytes of data, contain close to 400 destinations, teach many of the major topics in Astronomy in detail, and do one thing really really well ... ;) ... they get kids out of the classroom and up into space! Students love these lessons and consistently earn high grades in the subject areas they get to see. The Activities are now in use in hundreds of school districts around the world.
Teachers love the Activities also, since they do not have to teach that topic (the lesson plan does that), the worksheets can be graded separately then used as study guides, and most important ... your students think you're so cool :cool: for letting them fly through space on a school day.
All of the Activities can be downloaded one at a time for free, or can be obtained on self-installing CD set or DVD for a minimal fee. They are available on these two sites:
http://gregs-educational.info
http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/catalog/educational.php
I can honestly say that the use of Celestia via these Activities has transformed my high school Astronomy course from a room with a teacher, some videos and a blackboard, into a high-tech space simulation experience far more exciting than anything these kids have ever experienced in a school. In part because of my use of Celestia, I have won numerous awards for excellence in science teaching.
I urge you to give your kids the opportunity to explore space in person! Feel free to email me for advice or comments. Enjoy!
Frank Gregorio
Frank