Teaching eclipses?
Have you ever experienced an eclipse? I mean, how neat are they? I have viewed a few lunar eclipses in my lifetime, but my favorite has had to be the total solar eclipse of 2017. It was awesome!
It’s an experience that I’ll never forget. Let me set the scene. The location?: the best university in the whole entire world: NC State University. I had class that day as I was working towards my doctoral degree. I tried to get there a little early because they were giving out those special eclipse glasses and Moon Pies; however, the line was ridiculously long, and I’m not about waiting.
So, I headed to class, and we all got to go outside. Thankfully, there are awesome people that felt sorry for my pregnant self (I was about 7 months pregnant at the time), and I was able to borrow some glasses to see the event!
It was fun watching it with a group of people. Everyone was outside. We got to chat about the science, enjoy the view and the cooler air, and take pictures of all the cool crescent shaped shadows.
You may have your own story to share with your students about the awesome time that to Moon got in the way of the Sun’s light!
Your students will get to experience one soon depending on where you are. The next total solar eclipse that we’ll be able to see around here is 2027! Can’t wait!
Until then, there are some exciting things that you can do to teach the phenomena that happen when the Earth, Moon, and Sun align just right.
In this post, I will give you some WOW Factor ideas! I will share some ideas to get your students hyped up about the topic and help them to wonder. Next, I will share a way to deliver the content that is fun, interactive, and is sure to help your students overcome overwhelm. Lastly, I will share ways to help your students widen their knowledge on the topic!
Which of the eclipse activities for middle school will you choose?
Before Teaching Lunar Eclipses and Solar Eclipses – WONDER
I’m all about getting students excited about what they are about to learn. About this time, you have probably just finished teaching moon phases, and now are ready to move on to teaching eclipses – solar and lunar.
There are so many fun ideas to get students hyped up about the topic of eclipses. They see the Moon “change shape” each night, but it’s kind of a treat to witness an eclipse, especially a total solar eclipse.
Here are some awesome ideas to get student buy-in before diving into the content. You can choose to do one of these things, or multiple!
Watch an Eclipse
You might get lucky and teach this topic at a time where either a lunar or solar eclipse has just occurred in your area, but if not, you can always pull up a good YouTube video of one. All you have to do is search “eclipse video time-lapse” and you can choose between solar and lunar…or both!
Here are some to choose from:
Total Lunar Eclipse Time-lapse
Total Solar Eclipse Time-lapse
Have your students watch the video, and then you can have a discussion.
- How does this happen?
- What were the differences and similarities between lunar and solar eclipses?
- How long do you think this actually took?
This is a great way to activate their prior knowledge and give you a chance to see what they already know. In addition to the eclipses video, you can look at pictures of eclipses – lunar and solar.
Eclipse Demonstration
Giving your students a visual model beforehand can be a great tool before teaching the content. This activity by Generation Genius is awesome and pretty easy to do.
You’ll need:
- a meter stick
- a 3.5 cm clay ball
- a 1 cm clay ball
- 3 Toothpicks
- 2 Binder clips
The instructions and the video are linked on their website. This model is great for helping students to understand, and it’s a good excuse to go outside!
You can choose to do this as a demonstration or allow your students to make their own if there are enough materials! See if they can answer the question, “How are lunar and solar eclipses different?”.
Bring in ALL of the THEMING
I’m all about a good theme day, and it’s a good way to get your students excited. So ,what can you do?
- Well, the day before you are going to work on the lesson, tell your students to bring their sunglasses. They can wear them throughout the class if they wish! This will represent the glasses that they would need during a solar eclipse. This could be the start of a great conversation about why regular sunglasses are not equipped to block out enough sunlight to be safe for your eyes, and they should actually wear special sunglasses in the event of a solar eclipse!
- Another thing that you can do is play eclipse-themed songs the whole day: “Here Comes the Sun” by the Beatles, “Total Eclipse of the Heart” by Bonnie Taylor, and “Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves are all great!
- Last, but not least, bring in some Moon Pies. Explain that the Moon is a big part of the lesson for the day. See if they have any guesses to why!
At this point, they should be wondering about eclipses and ready to learn more!
Solar and Lunar Eclipses Explained – OVERCOMING OVERWHELM
Now that your students are excited about eclipses and have activated their prior knowledge, it’s time to take a deeper dive into the content. At this point, they may already know some stuff. You might have already taught them about other Earth-Moon-Sun system phenomena: rotation and revolution, seasons, tides, and Moon phases. Now, it’s time to learn about eclipses!
My favorite way to teach content is through interactive lessons. Interactive lessons are made for students to learn material in chunks while answering embedded questions. This allows for students to process one bit of information at a time, overcoming overwhelm, and reducing student cognitive load. You don’t want to cover the material so much at a time that they “can’t even find it”. Keep it simple, then move forward.
In this particular eclipses interactive lesson, students learn about how people back in the day viewed eclipses, lunar vs solar eclipses, what causes lunar and solar eclipses, how often do eclipses happen, umbra and penumbra, and so much more!
Some of the activities they work through are creating their own lunar eclipse and solar eclipse diagram, filling in blanks, KWL, and so much more. They will have a blast!
You can also find this resource on TPT.
Lunar and Solar Eclipse Activities – WIDEN
At this point, your students have probably learned SO much about eclipses and may even want to learn more. This is their time to learn more and show off the knowledge they’ve already gained. If there is time, you can work to widen their knowledge on the topic. Here are some ideas!
Greenscreen Report
If you have a greenscreen at your school, this is a fun activity that you can make as simple or as complicated as you’d like.
Task your students to create a weather report for the day of a solar eclipse or the night of a lunar eclipse. In this report they must include:
- Which eclipse is happening?
- What will the weather be like for the eclipse?
- Explain what will be happening during the eclipse (How do eclipses occur?).
As I said, this can be simple or complex. It’s up to you, your students, and your time!
Listen to a Podcast
There are some fun podcasts for kids out there in the world, and there are some episodes dealing with eclipses. Have your students listen to one! Here is one that I found that’s appropriate for middle school. It’s a bit cheesy, but secretly, kids love it! This episode happened before the 2017 eclipse!
Podcasts are great for widening student knowledge. There are a ton of fun kids podcasts! Some of my favorite podcasts include:
If you have any other podcasts that you love, let me know in the comments. I’m always looking for new science podcasts!
Sun-Moon-Earth Travel Brochure
This is a great activity to do for all of the awesome things that occur because of the Sun-Moon-Earth system: tides, Moon Phases, seasons, eclipses, etc., but you can also choose to do this for eclipses only.
What do you do? Task your students to create a travel brochure for aliens! Have your students create a brochure that will entice aliens to come visit Earth because of the awesome experiences they will have, including the wonder of eclipses (and if you choose, Moon phases, tides, seasons, etc.)!
You can grade your students on accuracy, creativity, spelling and grammar, neatness, etc.
Students can choose to do this individually or in partners/ groups. In addition, students can design on PowerPoint, Canva, or just choose to draw one!
Help your students master science content!
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