Star brightness and star distance/teaching approach

Students are challenged to put aside ‘modern knowledge’ of astronomy and consider the position of Huygens in the 17th Century. This lesson uses a story and humour to draw students into a narrative and place them in a dialogue with Christiaan Huygens, a character from astronomy history. The lesson model is that of active note-making. Students are provided with mini-diagrams around which they build up personalised notes about the lesson. Students must not take notes from the board but instead must use their creativity to develop their own notes. They are encouraged to use colour, image, symbols, humour and metaphor to result in a rich learning experience. Students need help in achieving this but soon catch onto the idea. They become increasingly independent taking notes and more attentive to the subject at hand. The resource would be used in a whole class setting although each chapter of the story focuses on small group discussion and feedback. The teacher keeps a clear focus to use open rather than closed questioning throughout.