Constellations Lesson

Constellations

Let's learn about the wonderful sky of Constellations!

​NOTE: Slides like these with notepads will often have important information you need to remember for your quiz!

​Introduction

​What are Constellations?

​Learn about them and test your knowledge using this lesson!

​You will see lessons and then after that, some quizzes to brush up on the information you learnt. This slideshow comes with another separate quiz that you can find on Quizzizz. Important text that is in bold will likely help you on the quiz. You can also use the questions throughout the slide to prepare.

Constellations are a pretty big deal, and they have been for ages of humans history.
You could think of constellations as multiple different "connect the dots" all over the night sky.​

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​The image you see on the right is a constellation, named Orion. Many constellations are named after things from different mythologies. Orion is a Greek Mythological figure.

​What Are Constellations?

​

Multiple Choice

Which of these are a constellation?

(Remember what you learned from the previous slide.)

Draw

Draw Your Own Make-Believe Constellation Here!

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There are many ways that constellations helped ancient humans, as you will soon read about....

​

Constellations Were (and are) Important

​Constellations Helped Humans Navigate

These days, if we want to find our way around, we use a GPS, or some sort of map that was created by humans. But in ancient times, we couldn't turn to our Siri or google. We turned to the night sky. Using the constellations and recognizing them were crucial to understanding where you were, and which direction would lead you to your destination.
If you were a sailor and you wanted to figure out which direction was land, you would take a look at the sky and try to recognize some stars and constellations. For example, if you wanted to head north, you would look for Polaris, which is also known as the North Star, and head in that direction.
There were also some tools that navigators could use to find there way around. One of these tools is a Astrolabe (picture A), which helped calculate latitudes. Another tool was a Cross-Staff (picture B), which could measure the angle of an object in the night sky above the horizon.

Constellations used to be a big part of everyday life.

​A

​B

Multiple Select

Which of these are tools that sailors used to navigate the sky?

• Astrolabe

• Cross-Staff

• Phone Compass

• Nearby Birds

​Constellations Helped Humans Understand the Calendar

If I asked you what the date is, then you would probably take a look at the calendar, or check the nearest screen, maybe you would know it at the top of your head. But in ancient times, people couldn't do this. They had to rely on other resources, one of them being the night sky.

Throughout the year, the night sky will rotate, just as the earth does. As it rotates throughout the year, different stars and constellations are visible. If you looked at the night sky in New England, and saw Aquarius, then you could probably figure out that it was Fall! If you found a summer constellation, you would know it is summer!
This trick is something that was used very often, mostly for farmers. To know the right time to plant crops, they needed to find the right constellations in the sky telling them that it was time to plant the seeds.

Constellations helped farmers and other people tell the time of the year.

Constellations used to be a big part of everyday life.

Multiple Choice

Fill in this sentence: The different times of the year are shown by...

• the constellations and stars found in the sky.

• the crops to plant.

• the sports played in that season.

• the brightness of all the stars.

​NOTE: There are TWO different hemispheres that have their own set of constellations. The Northern Hemisphere, and the Southern Hemisphere.

​EXAMPLE: Two Galaxies, M81 and M82 are found in the Northern Hemisphere.

Multiple Select

Select the Galaxies found in the Northern Hemisphere.

• M104

• M81

• M82

• Large and Small Magaellenic Cloud

​Let's Review...

Ancient people used constellations to...

• Tell the date on the calendar.

• Sail the seas.

Subject | Subject

Make sure you remember these things for the quiz!

Asterism's are kind of like constellations, being those connect the dot games all over the sky, and all. But instead, Asterisms are parts of constellations.

For example, the famous "Big Dipper" is actually an Asterism. It is a piece of the constellation "Ursa Major".

​What are Asterisms?

Draw

Can you try to outline the Asterism "The Big Dipper" in Ursa Major?

Fun Fact: Ursa Major means Big Bear.

​Let's See Some Constellations...

On the next slide, we can look at some constellations and learn about them.

NOTE: Some of the information in these slides will be important to know for your quiz. Watch out for bold letters!

Subject | Subject

Hydra is the largest out of 89 constellations! Hydra translates to "Water Snake" in Latin.

In Greek Mythology, hydra is a huge beats with 9 immortal heads.

​​Hydra

Ursa Major and Ursa Minor are two different bear constellations. They each have one asterism, the Big Dipper and the Little Dipper.

Ursa Major/Minor

Leo is a constellation in the form of a lion. Leo means lion in Latin! Leo is also a zodiac sign and represents bravery and royalty.

​​Leo

Don't get confused with these two constellations that actually sound very similar. Lepus is a hare and Lupus is a wolf.

​​Lepus v.s. Lupus

Fill in the Blank

Type the number of modern constellations found in the night sky:

(Type in numbers)

Lacerta is a constellation shaped as a lizard. Think Lacerta and Lizard.

Lacerta

Cygnus is a constellation of a Swan. It is found in the northern hemisphere and is therefore also named the Northern Cross.

Cygnus

​FACT: The Pleiades are a star cluster named, "The Seven Sisters".

​Let's look at some more things...

Constellations are great and all, but that is not going to be it on our journey!

We are also going to learn a little about stars and galaxies, some things that will also be found on your quiz.
Let's get started by learning a bit about the stars of our show...the stars!

​A Star's Life

Constellations are made up of stars. Stars are a huge part of our universe, even though the universe is...pretty big (actually, pretty big is an understatement to the stretches of our universe). But what are stars? We can start answering that question by taking a look at a stars life. How is a star born? What does a star do once it is born? How long does a star live? More on that in the next slides...

By the way...You will need to pay attention for bold letters, a little about stars will be on your quiz.

Multiple Choice

Attention Question (makes sure you are paying attention):

What are we going to learn about?

• Constellations

• Stars

• Galaxies

• The Universe

​After being a disk of dust and light in a stellar nursery (also known as a nebula), a star is born! Blue stars have lots of energy, they are bright and active.

Blue Star

Our little star is growing up! The blue star will now fade into white. Don't get this confused with white dwarfs, those are older stars!

White Star

​This is a middle-aged star now. That is just like our sun! These stars have finished growing up, they are about the size that they will always.

Yellow Star

​​Now our star is old. Red stars are the ones in their oldest color. A star like this is called, "Beetlejuice". No, not the show. It is a real star too!

​​Red Star

Multiple Choice

Which color star is the oldest?

• Blue

• White

• Yellow

• Red

• Purple

​FACT: Stars are usually not alone. There are typically Binary Stars or Trinary Stars. Binary stars are when 2 stars orbit each other. Trinary Stars are when three stars orbit each other.

​But that's not it!

To show you the stars lifetime, I showed you the different colors they can fade into. But that's not exactly it. There are different types of stars too. In the next slide, you will see a diagram. Then you will answer questions about that diagram. Good luck!

Fill in the Blank

What type of nebula is a star born in? Please answer in all lowercase.

Multiple Select

There are two types of stars that can be made after being born from the stellar nebula. What are these two types?

• Stellar Star

• Massive Star

• Average Star

• Small Star

Fill in the Blank

Fill in the blank. The same word applies for both blanks.

(Please answer in all lowercase)

Red _____

Red Super_____

Multiple Select

What happens to a star after being a red giant/red supergiant?

• Planetary Nebula

• Supernova

• Black Hole

• Neutron Star

Multiple Select

What happens to a star after being a planetary nebula or going supernova?

• White Dwarf

• Neutron Star

• Black Hole

• Black Dwarf

Poll

What do YOU think is the most important stage in a stars life?

• Stellar Nebula

• Average Star/Massive Star

• Red Giant/Supergiant

• Planetary Nebula/Supernova

• White Dwarf/Neutron Star/Black Hole

​FACT: Stellar Nurseries, or Nebulas have different names too! One of these nurseries, called the Ring Nebula, is named M57.

​You did it!

Wow! You have completed a lot. Nice work!

Now we are going to look a little bit into the world of galaxies...

To our galactic quest!

​Types of Galaxies

There are three different types of galaxies. The ones we will talk about are Spiral Galaxies, Elliptical Galaxies, and Irregular Galaxies.

After we learn about these types of galaxies, we will

Spiral Galaxies form a spiral shape that goes around and around, with multiple different branching arms. Our Milky Way Galaxy is a Spiral Galaxy!

​​Spiral

​The other type of galaxy, the Elliptical galaxy, are smooth in image and can be pretty small. There is not a lot of gas and dust in these galaxies, so there is not a lot of stars that form.

Elliptical

Irregular galaxies don't really have a definition. They have weird shapes, often because of gravity pulling in multiple different directions.

​​Irregular

Multiple Choice

How many types of galaxies are there?

• 2

• 3

• 5

• 4

​Astronomers

It is so cool to learn about all these things! But we cannot forget who made learning this possible. Astronomers! Astronomers study the night sky using telescopes and other tools. Take a minute to thank our astronomers for helping us learn all of these amazing things! Astronomy has been sparking here and there for a long time, but when Galileo came, it burst into flame. Some people say Galileo was the first Astronomer!

Multiple Choice

Attention Question !

What did we finish learning about?

• Constellations

• Stars

• Galaxies

• The Universe

Multiple Choice

Attention Question!

What profession uses a telescope the most?

• Constellations

• Astronauts

• Astrophysicists

• Astronomers

​Star Hopping

It is not easy to stargaze and automatically know all the stars and constellations. Luckily, that is why star hopping is here to save us. If you star hop, all you have to do is find ONE constellation and use that constellation to find the others.

Because there are two skies, the Northern and the Southern, there are two methods to star hopping, you use whichever one works on your sky.

Observe...

Here is a creative image showing star hopping in the northern sky.

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In order to use this appropriately, you need to break the star hopping down into simple steps.

​Northern Star Hopping

Here is a detailed image showing southern star hopping.

​

In order to use this appropriately, you need to break the star hopping down into simple steps.

Southern Star Hopping

Poll

Do you think that star hopping is helpful?

(opinion question)

• Yes

• No

• I don't know.

The End

You did it! You completed this slide! I hope you enjoyed learning about constellations.

But this does not have to be the end of your exploring. This was just supposed to be a introduction to all the things you can learn.

I hope you enjoyed learning throughout this presentation.

P.S. Drawing challenges in the rest of the slideshow!

Draw

Draw your own imaginary sky!

Draw

Draw yourself as an astronomer here:

Draw

Draw your own futuristic telescope here!

Draw

Free Draw: