Michelle Nichols - Little Learning Labs: Astronomy for Kids, Abridged Paperback Edition: 26 Family-Friendly Activities about Stars, Planets, and Observing the World Around You; Activities for Steam Learners

The Hubble Space Telescope captured light from about two million stars in the cluster called Omega Centauri.

Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

A variety of activities is contained in this book. Many can be done in one sitting, but others require observations over a few hours, a few days, or even a few months, depending on what you are investigating. You probably have many of the materials needed around your house already, and others that you may not have are simple to obtain. I also recommend that you start keeping a science journal or notebook to record your observations, results, questions, comments, and drawings. This will help you, especially for those activities that take longer periods of time to complete or that require several sessions.

Each lab contains an easy-to-understand explanation of the vocabulary and ideas you will explore, and each contains the following sections:

Time shows you approximately how long it will take to complete all the steps.

Materials lists all the items youll need to conduct each lab.

Safety Tips and Setup Hints gives you common-sense guidelines to make your investigations as safe and enjoyable as possible and highlights some steps to do in advance, if needed.

Instructions takes you step by step through a lab.

The Science Behind the Fun offers digestible explanations for each lab.

Creative Enrichment gives you variations or ideas for taking the project a step or two further.

Hopefully, youll be inspired to come up with some additional ideas of your own.

This book contains activities that are tried, true, and tested, and they will help you begin to make sense of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars. Several of the tools created for some of the earlier activities will be used in later ones. One thing this book is not, however, is an encyclopedia of everything you ever wanted to know about astronomy. That would be too much for one book! More Resources (see ) gives you some suggestions for taking advantage of stellar astronomy resources online and in your community to extend your explorations even further.

Parents, this book is as much for you as it is for your children. Help them with concepts and vocabulary, and assist with the activities where you can. Hopefully, everyone will learn something new.

Please keep in mind throughout your investigations that science is more than just the results of an experiment or activity. Science is messy and fun. Scientists ask questions, such as why, how, what, where, and whenas we all do! Science is about answering questions and then asking a hundred more. Science is not just about finding the right answer; scientists learn just as much from their failures as their successes. Science is wonder and science is discovery; so together, lets wonder about and discover more about our place in the Universe!

Scientists keep personal notebooks to document and detail background research, experiments, interesting results, thoughts, ideas, and questions. Some keep paper notebooks and others keep electronic ones. Why do they do this? Shouldnt they be spending their time doing experiments?

While experiments are important to many scientists, one of the most important skills for a scientist to practice is the ability to communicate ideas to an audience. A fantastic experiment with wonderful results means nothing if you cant explain to someone else what happened. There are several reasons for honing these skills. First, a scientist wants others to know the results of an experiment or the progress that has been made in researching something new. Secondly, a scientist wants others to be able to replicate the same experiment that was performed, meaning another person or team should be able to follow the experiment instructions to repeat them to confirm (or disprove!) the results. Thirdly, science is usually done by teams of men and women working together, not by individuals working completely alone. It is important for the team members to communicate well with one another so everyone can keep up with what everyone else is doing. Finally, some experiments may take a very long time to complete, and it would be extremely difficult to remember what happened months or years earlier if notes werent kept all along the way.