Literature Inspired by The Night Sky

Imagine a classroom where  students are engaged with literature (both reading and writing) while actively designing circuits,  engineering projection device, and creating interactive displays to help an authentic audience more actively observe the night sky.  This is exactly what you would have witnessed last week if you had walked into Liam Gannon’s sixth grade classroom during our maker residency at  Newport City Elementary School

In the week’s prior to the residency, I worked with local educators to design possibilities for STEAM integration that  included English Language Arts. After learning that the students were studying astronomy in science class and learning about The Greeks in their ELA class, I began to see all types of possibilities for interdisciplinary learning between science and ELA.. It was the perfect topic for a project based learning experience. 

• The Night Sky theme combines science concepts with cultural storytelling
• Constellations provide natural bridges between astronomy and mythology
• The subject matter intrinsically motivates students through wonder and imaginationprior to the residency

After looking closely at both the science and language arts curriculum in this K to 6 school, I noticed that space  was a topic that students engaged with in grade 1, grade 3, grade 5 and grade 6.   This provided the perfect opportunity for our sixth grade students to have authentic audience for their hands on projects and lead to the following essential question. 

An additional goal of the project design was that we would introduce students to the school's new laser cutter. Therefore I designed three different project prototypes that would allow for some student voice and choice and also be a skill builder that would create confidence with this new tool for creating and making. 

Paper Circuit Journals: Students create illuminated journals that literally shine light on constellation stories. By building parallel circuits and designing journal covers, they practice and review knowledge gained in 4th grade about energy, while exploring new astronomical knowledge and writing creatively. A student guide inquiry about constellation and retelling of myths  would be printed in booklet format to fit inside the journal cover. 

  
Projection Flashlight Design: An engineering challenge that asks students to create constellation projection devices using a flashlight and maker tools and supplies found in their classroom. This device would be used by younger students during a read-aloud of the picture book - "Usha and the Big Digger".

 
Interactive Constellation Displays: Students develop displays that combine visual, auditory, and interactive elements using circuits and code to communicate what they are learning about astronomy. This project would deepen understanding of energy from the 4th grade NGSS and include some engineering design options while building switches for interactivity with the circuits.  It would also introduce students to computer science through the use of Scratch to control a circuit board such as the Makey Makey. 

In future posts I will include tutorials and resources to help students and teachers create all three of these projects.  You can also create confidence in building each of these projects along or similar projects this summer during a fun filled week of hands on learning at the Project Design Lab June 23 - 27 in Burlington Vermont.  (includes lodging and graduate credit)  

 This post will focus on the curricular integration possibilities with science, research, reading, and writing. 

Curriculum Alignment 

 

In this district,  the  Next Generation Science Standards - .Space Systems: Stars and the Solar System is addressed in Grade 5 and 6.  

The project also allows students to review and apply the concepts learned during their 4th grade exploration of Energy. (Next Generation Science Standards- 4-PS3 Energy)

The district also uses the Amplify Learning - CKLA curriculum for English Language Arts.

As we kicked off our project, the sixth grade ELA classes were immersed in the CKLA-Grade 6 Curriculum Unit (The Greeks).  

This proved to be a great alignment as students explored the constellations in science class and read associated Greek myths, while learning all about Greek culture in their ELA classes.  This project also provides alignment possibilities with the CKLA-Grade 6 Curriculum  unit focused on Beginning StoryTelling   that kicks off in Grade 6. 

When we  noticed that the Space Theme was part of the Amplify Learning CKLA curriculum in Grade 1 and 3, we immediately saw an opportunity for the sixth graders to share their learning about the night sky with younger learners - both through reading aloud to their younger peers and engaging them with discussions about the night sky with their paper circuits,  projection devices, and interactive posters.

The following books were referenced throughout the projects. Some of these served as inspiration and reference books, while some were used by the sixth grade students as read alouds for their younger reading buddies.

1. "Animals in the Sky" by Sarah Gillingham
   

• Perfect for younger learners

• Features 8 animal constellations with crisp, inspiring images

• Ideal for guiding students in drawing their own constellations

2. "Seeing Stars" by Sarah Gillingham
   

• Comprehensive guide to all 88 constellations

• Combines factual information with engaging stories and myths

• Accessible for middle-grade students

3. "Zodiac: Celestial Circle of the Sun" by Jacqueline Mitton
   

• Beautifully illustrated by Christina Balit

• Provides rich descriptions of constellation stories

• Offers deep insights into Greek mythology

4. "Zoo in the Sky" by Jacqueline Mitton
   

• Another beautifully illustrated book by Mitton

• Focuses on animal constellations

• A top recommendation that students love to reference

5. "Out of This World" by Sally M. Walker
   

• Unique approach combining science and poetry

• Features star-studded haiku that bring scientific concepts to life

• Praised for making astronomical spaces feel personal

6. "Our Stars" by Anne Rockwell
   

• Explains the universe with bright pictures and simple text

• Perfect for sparking curiosity in young learners

• Accessible explanation of complex astronomical concepts

7. "Usha and the Big Digger" by Amitha Jagannath Knight
   

• Part of the Storytelling Math series

• Introduces rotation, geometry, and spatial relationships

• Features diverse characters and cultural perspectives

8. "What We See in the Stars" by Kelsey Oseid
   

• Combines art, mythology, and science

• Over 100 original art pieces accompanying scientific facts

• Covers constellations, planets, and celestial phenomena

• Appeals to both young readers and adults rekindling their love of stargazing

Writing Opportunities

The project offers student choice with writing prompts for students who prefer creative writing as well as those who prefer non-fiction writing.

To scaffold the writing process we created this student guide to accompany the project.   This guide included guiding questions for reading fiction (associated myth). It then proceeds to scaffold summarizing and retelling the myth for a new audience. Finally it guides students through writing a new modern day version of the myth. This guide can  be printed in booklet format and inserted in the paper circuit journal cover created in science class. 

The power of learning through creating and making

I want to thank Newport City School for the opportunity to co-design a learning opportunity that invites students to see themselves as creators, storytellers, and explorers.

This project not only embodies the maker movement's core principle: learning is most powerful when students actively construct knowledge, but also

• Encourages scientific curiosity
• Develops storytelling skills
• Fosters engineering thinking
• Promotes collaborative learning

Ready to bring the creativity, circuits, and storytelling into your classroom? The universe is waiting.

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to get notified of new post, new resources and tutorials or new events 

And if  you'd like to learn how to  design your own integrated STEAM infused project using creativity, circuits, & stories this summer, join me and other creative educators for a fun filled week of hands on learning at the Project Design Lab June 23 - 27 in Burlington Vermont.  (includes lodging and graduate credit)  

Paper Circuits: Stars and the Solar System

Last week, I arrived at Newport City Elementary excited to kick off a STEAM infused maker residency that integrated science and language arts.  I was looking forward to co-facilitate this learning opportunity with Liam Gannon (6th grade science teaher) It was obvious that the students were already underway with their  science unit on Stars and the Solar System. 

A model of the solar system hung from the ceiling and various stages of paper circuits of various constellations were stored along a student work storage area. 

The students created these using LED's, conductive tape (copper and fabric), and coin cell batteries.

You can find all the supplies and lessons on creating paper circuits on the Brown Dog Gadget site.  Completing the first 2 lessons will provide the foundation for this project. 
Pro Tip:  Many paper circuit tutorials found online use copper tape in their instruction.  This can sometimes be challenging as not all copper tape is created equal.  I would suggest trying to find double conductive copper tape for maker projects. Even that can lead to flaky results that frustrates students.  For the best results, I recommend ordering some conductive fabric tape.  It's AMAZING!  Mr. Gannon students use a combination of both types of conductive tape in their circuits, but they always reinforce the tricky spots with conductive fabric tape. 

Mr. Gannon explained that creating these constellation models was part of the phenomena-based learning pedagogy associated with  the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).  Even though we live in an area where the night sky is often clearly visible, few students had actually ever closely observed the night sky.  By using Stellarium Web planetarian and creating a light up constellation model, the students were engaged in the observation of objects found in the night sky.  They also reviewed their understanding of  Energy Transfer (NGSS Standard 4-PS3) 

"To qualify as a scientific phenomenon, an event simply has to be observable.
That is, a scientific phenomenon is an observable event that occurs in the universe. It’s something we can use our science knowledge to explain or predict."  (Amplify: The Power of Phenomena in the Science Classroom)

 As students entered the classroom the first day,  I  immediately noticed a classroom culture that truly cultivates learning, built on consistent routines and clear expectations. In Mr. Gannon's classroom, students moved with practiced confidence through materials distribution, group formation, and discussion participation—routines that maximized the learning time with minimal disruption. His space is organized to facilitate collaboration, with flexible seating arrangements that shift seamlessly between whole-class instruction, small group explorations, and independent work. The classroom space was filled with work in progress rather than just finished work, offering visible evidence that this is a community where learning is the shared purpose, respect is the common language, and every student's contribution matters. 

Mr. Gannon set the tone for each class with a warm-up activity that physically and mentally prepared the students to focus on today's topic.  Monday's warmup challenged the students to find a constellation on the Stellarium planetarium image projected on their interactive Viewsonic board and use the marker tools to draw out the constellation. 

  

One of the highlights of the weeks for me was watching a master teacher exemplify how to facilitate learning through purposeful questions.  Liam’s thoughtful questions and guiding comments throughout the week created just the right “zone of proximal development” for his sixth grade students.  He precisely gauged the  students' current understanding and used questions to scaffold them to deeper thinking. 

 Throughout our week together, I witnessed  his intentional questions and guiding comments  promoting student curiosity, visible thinking, and authentic learning. These are  key elements for deeper learning identified by Salmon and Barrera identified in their participatory action research.  You can read more about these key elements here: 

Salmon, A. K., & Barrera, M. X. (2021). Intentional questioning to promote thinking and learning. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 40, 100822. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2021.100822

Perhaps most importantly, students demonstrated a level of comfort with him and each other. It was obvious that this was a safe place to take intellectual risks and that  Mr. Gannon had established a culture where questions are valued over answers, process is honored alongside product, and mistakes are reframed as valuable learning opportunities.  I knew it was going to be an amazing week as I worked alongside this masterful teacher.   

In the next few post I will share our learning this week along with some extensions that integrate with the Amplify CKLA (language arts) curriculum  in hopes that it might inspire you to design learning opportunities through creating and making.   Here's a sneak preview to the next few posts describing our fun filled week learning through creating and making around this essential question: 

Subscribe to this blog or Sign up for our newsletter
to get notified of new post, new resources and tutorials or new events 

And if  you'd like to learn how to  design your own integrated STEAM infused project using creativity, circuits, & stories this summer, join me and other creative educators for a fun filled week of hands on learning at the Project Design Lab June 23 - 27 in Burlington Vermont.  (includes lodging and graduate credit)  

 

 

 

 

GAME CHANGER: Cuttle.xyz launches Auto Trace feature -

WooHoo!  Did you see Cuttle.xyz's latest beta feature!  AUTOTRACE! 

Cuttle's most recent addition of an AUTO TRACE feature reinforces my belief that Cuttle listens to its customers and is dedicated to meeting our needs as it continues to improve its product. 

Just last year, I was asking Toby from Cuttle.xyz if an AutoTrace feature might someday be added to Cuttle. He responded that it was something they would like to add. He asked more questions about how we would like to use that feature.  I shared a recent project where students created journal covers that were inspired by nature .  I also sent him some sample sketches we would like to auto trace for our journal covers. I was so excited to see the AutoTrace feature has recently been added.  Let's test it. 

In our journal cover project,  the students were asked to sketch some shapes they noticed in nature that might be used to create interesting patterns. 

Back in the classroom, we asked them to select one of those shapes and use a dark marker to recreate it on the back of an  index card. Here are a few examples.

Our goal was to create repeating patterns that would make interesting journal covers inspired by nature.  The patterns could then be cut out from one of the two pieces of cardstock we used to cut our two color journal covers.  Complex patterns cut better on a laser cutter, but most patterns were able to be cut using a craft cutter (Cricut or Silhouette). 

Prior to AutoTrace, we used several steps and online tools to crop the images, remove the background, and convert to SVG.  That's ALOT of file management for our Grade 4-6 students.  But they persevered!  

I just tested some of their images with Cuttle's AutoTrace feature. It worked great with the images drawn on white index cards.  Here's a quick video of the test. 

The AutoTrace feature will save so many steps, next time we try this project.  Note: Since AutoTrace didn't work quite so well with colored index cards, I'll make sure to only hand out white index cards for students to draw on next time.  We'll also be a little more careful to only photograph the index card (not the table) next time.  

This feature opens up possibilities! And is one more reason, why I will continue to introduce Cuttle.xyz as a must have tool for our school makerspaces.  Not to mention, the fact that it works on Chromebooks; they have signed student data privacy agreements with our schools, and they have affordable  classroom and school licensing pricing.

Thanks to Toby and his team for being so responsive to our feature request and supporting the needs of our schools in growing the next generation of innovators. 

CS Inspired by Literature #WAOTL Challenge 5 - Adding Dialogue to your Scratch Project

 In my recent posts, I introduced a #WAOTL series where you and your students experience computer science by using Scratch to create and code an interactive experience with bioluminescent characters from the children's book "Whose Afraid of the Light" by Anna McGregor.  

Here are the posts in the series so far 

• Welcome post and video introducing the series 
• Workflow for importing students art work into Scratch 

• Challenge 1 - Coding an animation that simulates bioluminescence  

• Challenge 2 - Adding Game Play to our Bioluminescent animation   

• Challenge 3 - Adding  and Control the Movement of a Diver Sprite to our animation 

• Challenge 4 - Adding  New BackDrops and Sound to Scratch projects

• Challenge 5 - Adding Dialogue to your Scratch Project

Today's post will introduce Challenge 5 where we will learn to add dialogue to our interactive experience.

By completing this challenge you will  create confidence with code using the following blocks of code: 

Let's add some dialogue to our experience.  We can make the dialogue displayed in text form whenever you click on the character.   

Select one of the character sprites in your project, then drag out the  "When this sprite is clicked block."  
Next, drag a purple "SAY" block. 

After you snap these two together, add text to let your character introduce themselves with an interesting fact.  
Have students reread the book and look at the appendix of the book for facts that can help them understand the role of bioluminescence in your character.

Next, decide how long you should display the “speech bubble”.

What if you want to also add a ‘real voice” along with the text dialogue when you click on your character. 

Use what you learned in the last challenge to record you voice and add a Start Sound block.  

Where would you put that that code block so that you could read AND listen to the sea character introduce itself when you click on it.? 

As I was playing with dialogue,  I decided that I wanted the characters to show when they talked.

I added a Show Costume block, but got  some unpredictable results. 

After some troubleshooting, I found a solution that worked. I knew that the costume always showed up when the diver was touching the sprite.  What if I used the GO TO block to move the character to the diver?  That worked well, and also added a fun element to my project.

Note: There are additional solutions that would require more advanced skills. I chose not to use those to stay within the skills that 4th grade students might have after completing these challenges.

Did you know that Scratch also offers some additional experimental code blocks including a Text to Speech Extension?  If you have extra time, you might want to explore this, by adding the extension, and dragging over the "speak" blocks  to replace the START SOUND block. 

 

Here is a partial solution of Challenge 5 to explore. . https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1097888175/

I’ve coded only the Vampire Squid  to have speak when you click in it. Try adding dialogue boxes to the other characters.

 A nice thing about this story is that there are 4 characters giving the students a chance to repeat the code they just learned 3 more times.

GROUP PROJECT:  If you want students to work in groups, you can ask each student to  code the same story with only ONE character.   Then export all the characters into ONE project.  The code will also export with the character. 

To export a sprite or a stage, simply Right click in the sprite collection area of your project.   This could allow students to work in groups to create and code different parts of a project.  They could them email or upload their sprite to a folder for ONE person to collect them all and assemble them into one project. 

Challlenge 5 will be the last in this short beginning Coding Who's Afraid of the Light Series series, but we are working on some BONUS Challenges were we will use Circuits and Circuits Boards such as Makey Makey, Fun Key, and Micro:bits that will be released later this month.   Stay tuned. 

You can subscribe to this blog to get notified when the next challenge is posted.

Originally created for  CSTA-Vermont during Computer Science Education Week 2024

CS Inspired by Literature © 2024 by Lucie deLaBruere is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0