Math Is Fun Forum

apuroop08

Member

Registered: 2009-02-05

Posts: 1

Practical teaching for students

I teach maths for an International School and it is three years now that i have been teaching. I am also the president of the astronomers club in our school and i have no idea about space and stars. I would like to know, what is the best and the easiest way to teach kids about space and planets? We follow the orthodox way of teaching with the help of charts and maps.

Last edited by apuroop08 (2009-02-05 22:43:35)

agnettagray

Member

Registered: 2009-02-09

Posts: 1

Re: Practical teaching for students

A trip to a space museum can be a good option or you can also arrange for some discussion with people having more knowledge on astronomy.

Jai Ganesh

Administrator

Registered: 2005-06-28

Posts: 46,317

Re: Practical teaching for students

apuroop08,
Stargazing. You can start by saying that after the Moon, the brightest object in the sky is planet Venus.
You can tell them about the Pole star, Milky Way, the constellations etc.
I think teaching them about the sizes and the magnitudes of distances involved would help. These are magnitudes they may never have heard of. You can also use anologies in teaching, like the Sun is more than a million times as big as earth, and some interesting facts like it takes moonlight less than 2 seconds to reach earth whereas it takes sunlight about 499 seconds, and the light from the nearest star more than 4 years!
Frankly, I don't think charts and maps would be of much help!

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It appears to me that if one wants to make progress in mathematics, one should study the masters and not the pupils. - Niels Henrik Abel.

Nothing is better than reading and gaining more and more knowledge - Stephen William Hawking.