CMIS Evaluation

“The Universe, Yours to Discover”

February 15th marks the 445th birthday of Galileo Galilei – the father of observational astronomy and telescopes. The design principles developed by Galileo are still applied to telescopes today. The International Year of Astronomy has been designated to observe the 400th anniversary of Galileo turning a telescope to the sky. The Year has been endorsed by UNESCO and will be a year-long, worldwide celebration of astronomy for all.

We’ve gathered together a few interesting website and links to help you on the way.

For information on everything you ever wanted to know about Galileo, and to celebrate his birthday, the first stop should be the Galileo Project.

400 Years of the Telescope - Primarily dedicated to a film about the development of telescopes, this site contains amazing pictures of the universe.

The CMIS Theme page on Astronomy is a another good starting point, especially for primary school, where teachers and students can access information from a variety of sources such as NASA, The Australia Telescope at Parkes and WA Astronomy.

If you cannot arrange a night field trip to observe the heavens, a very good substitute is Google Sky. Here students can see stars and other heavenly bodies, many photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope. For teachers the Educators section has lots of ideas for using the Google Sky feature in the classroom.

Paul Floyd’s Night Sky online gives users a comprehensive look at southern skies and includes a newsletter with classroom ideas for Term 1 2009

For teachers wishing to extend their knowledge further – the Science Teachers Association of WA will be holding the 2009 Primary Science Conference -“Science and the Stars” conference in April.

Happy stargazing!

Looking for activities to engage students in Early Childhood classes?

Perhaps introducing students to an old favourite on the interactive Mr Potato Head website and a bright new and innovative site in  Bembo’s Zoo could be helpful. These are educationally sound examples of Interactive Whiteboard applications.  Lecky’s Picture Painting (colour sequencing) is just one activity available from the CrickWeb Early Years site which has numerous activities suitable for any brand of whiteboard. These websites offer enjoyable learning experiences for younger students whilst improving motor control.   

General information about whiteboards and links to other classroom activity sites can be found at the CMIS website IWB page.