In the past year, my students and I have participated in an eTwinning project called Space Adventures. Our partners were from France, Italy and Poland.
The main aim of the project is to acquire knowledge of the planets of the solar system, of exoplanets and of the ways to detect them.
Meanwhile, we also hope that students will expand their scientific English vocabulary. Not only due to the specific multilingual glossary of astronomy but also due to the collaborative activities and teamwork through which students had to gather material on famous astronomers, on planets and their environments and on modern exoplanet detection systems.
Coding was also part of the project together with the programming of software like Stellarium and of robots or drones to explore the schools. Students should improve their skills in this area too.
Final products:
- A multilingual glossary of astronomy
- Videos of school exploration
- Biographies of Galileo, Copernicus, Le Verrier and Noordung
- Jigsaw puzzles on planets
- A scale model of the Solar System
- An E-book for a report on the conference with scientists working on exoplanets
We planned the following activities:
Activity 1 : What do we know about the other countries?
Activity 2 : Create and vote for the best logo.
Activity 3 : A collaborative multilingual glossary of astronomy.
Activity 4 : Astronomers’ biographies.
Activity 5 : School exploration by “robots”.
Activity 6 : A video conference or a visit from an astronomer/astrophysicist as a role model. A discussion with scientists (from France and form Slovenian about exoplanets.
Activity 7 : Games for students about astronomy
Events with scientists:
Mr. Sean Raymond is an astronomer working at the Laboratory of Astrophysics in Bordeaux. In video conference meeting he explane us how they can find exoplanets.
Dr. Marija Strojnik (Scholl) is a senior professor at the Optical Research Center in Leon, Mexico. She visited Slovenian school beginning March when she visited Slovenia. Students asked her questions about exoplanets and about her work in Mexico. The questions were prepared with the cooperation of all partners.
All activities are on our TwinSpace: https://twinspace.etwinning.net/47471/home