Thanks to compelling astronomy experts such as Professor Brian Cox, Sir Patrick Moore and Carl Sagan, study of the stars has often been a fascinating, entertaining practise. But how to best teach this subject in schools, and how do you make the most of such an interesting topic? Rachel Wintemberg, Marc Taras and Lindsey Tisch, teachers at William C. McGinnis School in Perth Amboy, New Jersey have been teaching astronomy using tools as diverse as iPads and toilet paper...

This is an interdisciplinary science, maths, art and technology lesson by Marc Taras, Lindsey Tisch and Rachel Wintemberg at William C. McGinnis School, Perth Amboy NJ. We used the following iPad apps and websites to investigate the solar system:

http://vitotechnology.com/solar-walk.html

http://vitotechnology.com/star-walk.htmlFor this lesson, the website www.outerspaceuniverse.org gave our students the information they needed to create their own planets on the iPads, by answering the question:

The colors of each planet in the solar system.

We had each group pick a planet out of a hat. They then researched information on that planet using the iPad app Solar Walk (link above).

Credit to: This lesson was created by our team as part of a grant by the Geraldine R. Dodge foundation. Training on arts integration was given, as part of the grant, by the Rutgers Graduate School of Education.