Mr. Z is a middle school science teacher who is out to solve a problem. Each year, his eighth grade physical science class takes an outdoor education trip to a camp that is located a half-day bus ride from the city. He schedules the trip so part of it occurs at night, and uses this as an opportunity to add some hands-on observation experiences to his unit on astronomy.
But despite the fact that the night sky is clear and the weather consistently perfect at the time the trip is scheduled, he has trouble engaging the students. They have a tendency to gaze rather mindlessly at the sky, and have great trouble actually seeing the planets and constellations that he points out.
Mr. Z has not been able to envision a project that they might do as a result of the experience, beyond a quiz on the constellations, which a large number of students fail. He would love to have his students share his love of, and curiosity regarding, astronomy.
This year, for the first time, students have been asked to bring smartphones or other Android devices on the trip and, for those students who don't have devices, the school set of tablets has been transported to the camp as a supplement. Mr. Z's astronomy unit is about to receive a 21st century facelift.
Prior to the outdoor education session, on the classroom Website, Mr. Z posts a list of astronomical "objects:" stars, planets, galaxies, or constellations that he knows will be in the night sky during the trip. He asks the students to select three to five of these objects that they find at least mildly interesting. That interest might be due to the physical nature of the object, the size of a galaxy perhaps, or to the history or mythology that surrounds the object. In order to facilitate their exploration of the objects, Mr. Z provides links to a host of online resources from ComPADRE, the National Science Foundation, and others.
The assignment for each student is to create a "sales pitch" with an accompanying electronic poster for the object that they find the most interesting. He tells the students that they can make their final choice of the subject for their poster while on the outdoor education trip, after they have met their object "in person!" In addition, Mr. Z provides students with a link to the Android app, SkyMap, which he also installs on the schools tablet computers.
On the evening of the outdoor education experience, Mr. Z provides the students with a quick tutorial on the SkyMap app and then charges them with meeting their celestial objects. Using the app, students search for the constellations, planets and/or galaxies that they have selected. After entering the name of the object, the students are guided, as they scan the phone or table across the night sky, until the app centers them on the target.
For each of these objects they are asked to take a screen grab of the app as it displays the object, usually by simply pressing the power and menu button simultaneously. In addition, students are invited to try taking pictures of the object with their devices, although they are cautioned that, depending upon the quality of the camera, this may meet with mixed results. Soon the students are scanning and grabbing their way across the night sky with, as Mr. Z notes, much greater enthusiasm than they have demonstrated in the past.
Back in the classroom the students download their screen-grabs and photos to classroom laptops and, working in the online poster creation environment Glogster, create their sales pitches for the supremacy of their object in the night sky. Mr. Z is pleased when the students embellish their posters using other resources, including additional images and videos from NASA and the other resources that he supplied on the classroom Website.
Then the students record their sales pitches as sound files and add them to their Glogster posters. In the end, Mr. Z and several of the tech savvy students create a survey in the Web survey environment SurveyMonkey and invite the 7th grade students to view the posters and vote for their favorite object. Mr. Z is pleased to overhear 7th graders in the lunchroom discussing excitedly the celestial objects that they will choose when their turn comes the following year.