My Sky Observation Journal

Opening Discussion

Ask your students what kinds of things they think they would see if they looked up at the sky today. Write down, on a piece of chart paper, white board, etc., everything they list. If they look outside on another day, will they see the same things or different things? Why do they think that might be? Tell them that you are going to all keep a journal of what they observe in the sky over a period of a week, a month, a year (teacher’s choice), and see if they notice any patterns or surprises.

Ask your students how they think scientists might use observations to help them figure things out. After a brief discussion, you can tell them that the kind of observing they will do outside is the same kind of observing that scientists do – scientists observe the world, notice interesting things, ask questions about what they observed, and design experiments to help answer those questions.

The Challenge

Keep a journal of your observations of the sky.

Doing the Activity

1. Make sure each child has their own journal or pages, and a place to keep them over time.
2. Choose a place to look out at the sky. You should have children always look up at the sky from the same place – whether it is a window or somewhere outside – so that their patch of sky remains constant, but what they see in it changes over time. So choose these locations carefully! Different children can make their observations from different places, but each child should always observe from the same place.
3. Ask children to write down everything they observe in the sky. You may need to help the students with their observations. Walk around and ask probing questions, such as: “What color is it? Does it remind you of anything?” On a really clear day you could ask if the blue in the sky seems the same everywhere.
4. Give them 5-10 minutes to make and record their observations. These observations can be in the form of words, drawings, or both. They can be precise observations (“I saw a plane move across the sky for 30 seconds.”), or even reflective (“This sky is the same color blue as my jacket. It reminded me of my birthday last year.”). Younger children can make drawings if they are not ready for narrative descriptions, or they can ask you to write down what they observe. Alternatively, you can have the whole group make observations, come back together, and have you write down in a journal everything they all observed.

Let’s Talk About It

After each time that your children look up at the sky and record their observations, bring them together to share what they noticed. Did anything surprise them? Did anything change from last time? Did they see anything they had never seen before, or did they see some things they had expected to see? What descriptive words did they use? What questions about the sky, or anything they saw in the sky, do these observations bring up for them?

If you are using loose pages, ask kids how they would like to collect their pages together into a journal. Some suggestions are using three-ring binders, stapling the pages together, binding them with yarn or a book binding machine, etc.  Tell them that they’ll be filling out this journal throughout the year (week, month) to make a book that they can keep.

Build On What They Talked About

Continue to make observations daily, a few times a week, weekly, or monthly over an extended period. After a designated amount of time (a week, a month, a year, etc.), have children look back at their observations and see if they notice any patterns.

You could try taking it even further – NASA has a whole host of sites and activities dedicated to data collection and analysis. One of the richest is “My NASA Data” (http://mynasadata.larc.nasa.gov/), which has real time data, activities and more. See Suggestions below for even more ideas.