Universe Lesson Plans

Students consider the prospect of inviting a controversial leader to speak in their community. They analyze the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's controversial invitation to speak at Columbia University. Students create provocative interview questions to ask other contentious world leaders for class presentations.

Students scale the evolution of the universe to a one year calendar, with the Big Bang occuring on the first moment of January 1st. They estimate where on this one year time line significant events in Earth's history should be placed.

Students explore the major events that formed our universe and create a timeline.  In this space science timeline lesson plan, students investigate major events in groups and illustrate their event.  Students post their illustrations in a timeline.

Students identify several properties of water as a universal substance, describe the composition of several complex color mixtures and separate the components of dye using chromatographic technique.

Students analyze the work of Diego Rivera. They participate in a class discussion, critique various paintings, write a short story based on a Rivera mural, and create a class mural.

Students write in their journals to analyze the use of nostalgia. After reading an article, they identify aspects that are universal for holidays. They describe and examine their own memories of a specific holiday and interview someone who shares a similiar experience.

Students design ways to accommodated voters with disabilities. In this creative problem solving instructional activity, students use the ADA checklist for polling places and universal design principles to evaluate a polling place. They draw plans showing their improvements.

Students assess the journalistic value of numbers used in newspaper articles while learning about the significance of the Hubble telescope's new data on the age of the universe.

How can we identify shapes in the Universe? High schoolers will compare and contrast elliptic and hyperbolic geometry. They will also explore one possible way to measure the curvature of the Universe, namely, by measuring the sum of the angles in a triangle. Resource links are included.

Students investigate the definitions of poverty and impoverishment. They design a poster that show the Articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that are violated by poverty. They write an article for the school newspaper highlighting these same ideals.