Learning from Experience - Stellarium

I remember having an astronomy lesson in science class. The teacher was trying to let us explore the sky and one of our assignments was to observe our night’s sky. This was difficult because some students lived in more rural areas than others. Because each student had different views and light effects it was difficult to come to a consensus on student’s observations. We were also supposed to research a specific constellation and give facts about it in a simple report as well as a graphic representation of the constellation. The problem arose first when not the entire student body did the night observation assignment. The second was that those who did didn’t have the same experience and did it on different nights, times and locations. A third issue was that not all of the students were able to determine which starts were the correct stars they should be looking at when it came to larger known constellations like Orion’s belt and the Big and Little Dippers. However with the use of Stellarium, your computer becomes a planetarium. There is a lot of control with Stellarium from the telescope to the time and location (coordinates). I think this would have benefitted the students a lot more if they were able to scroll around the sky looking at what interested them. It would have also promoted the students to choose their own stars or constellations for research. An interesting addition for the project could be a pseudo ‘trip’ to the star by using computer video recording features students can record adjustments in their view to simulate them ‘flying’ or getting closer to their star or constellation. This could be something interesting a student could include in their presentation of information on their researched star or constellation.