Category

Yagiyama Primary School (2004)

Content of prior guidance

One Week Before　Advance knowledge of the solar eclipse is obtained.

We had a class to have the advance knowledge of the solar eclipse on October 7, 2004 before one week the solar eclipse.

Plan

1. Write down something about "solar eclipse" and discuss.
2. Listen to more explanation about it based on the discussion.The following are the points of the explanation.
• How does the solar eclipse happen?
• The shadow of the moon passing across the surface of the earth.
• Apparent diameter of the sun and the moon from the earth
• Various solar eclipses.
3. Listen to notes of the method of the observation.

The students' reaction under class

　Half of the pupils in the class had heard the phrase "solar eclipse". In addition,pupils who were able to explain that it is "The phenomenon of the sun being covered by the moon" were about three people. The explanation of the solar eclipse was done by Power Point showing the appearance of the shadow of the moon moving across the earth's surface, and explaining a total solar eclipse, an annular solar eclipse, and a partial solar eclipse. The three kinds of solar eclipses were explained using a pupil's face as the sun, a stick of xylophone as the moon and a camera as the earth. They are very interested in this scene, and it seems to be easy for pupils to have understood the relation of the position of actual astronomical objects and the view from the earth.

The observation of a partial solar eclipse on October 14

　A partial solar eclipse was observed at the third hour on 14th October after the opening ceremony of semester. The three classes of sixth graders were involved. At the beginning of eclipse 10:30, which is during resting time, More than half of the children gathered independently for the observation. Just after the sun began to eclipse, the shout of joy went up here and there around the schoolyard. The shape of the sun that they had observed was sketched at intervals of the regular time in the third hour of this class. Because it became cloudy, and we didnﾕt have enough time to observe, at 11.20 we moved to the hall in the schoolhouse. Then we saw the video of the total solar eclipse that had been seen in Australia in 2002( taken by Miyagi University of Education planetary science laboratory). There were a lot of children who saw the image of the total solar eclipse for the first time, and were a lot of children who mentioned this as the most impressive thing in the questionnaire. An astronomical show that occurs on a big scale was observed, and I think that the number of children who became interested in celestial objects and space increased.

Pictures

	Pupils who observe solar eclipse by solar observing visors. They are filling the observation results in the worksheets.
	Pupils' guardian also participated in the observation.
	"Eclipse looks like this now" There was a child who drew on the ground.

Comments from the worksheets

Comments from the worksheets

The comments were excerpted from the worksheets. (No edit)

• I could see eclipsed part of the sun change, even in observations taken every five minutes. It was nice to have such a class. I want more.
• I have seen an eclipse before, but it was good to see again with a sun visor. The total eclipse that Mr. Nakatsutsumi saw in Australia two years ago,which I saw for the first time, was so impressive.
• I saw a solar eclipse for the first time. I was happy because I have never seen this before.
• When the eclipse happened, eclipsed part was changing. It was interesting. The solar eclipse in Australia was surprising, because the sun was totally covered. I knew the sun was not covered in a short time in a solar eclipse.
• I was unexpectedly impressed to see the video of the total eclipse. I would like to see next total eclipse in person.

Worksheet

The day of partial solar eclipse Pictures Comments from the worksheets Worksheet They are worksheets actually used by the solar eclipse observation in the Yagiyama primary school.

Content	PDF
Predicting before the observation
Filling in the observation result.