Stars Form
Teacher Resources
Lesson Guide
Curious about where to find sample answers for claim-testing and causation activities? Check out this guide.
Vocabulary Guide
This lesson introduces vocabulary that students may be unfamiliar with. Use this guide to learn about different strategies, such as teaching vocabulary thematically or having students compile student-driven personal dictionaries.
Driving Question: Why is the formation of stars important?
The early Universe was very dark for its first 200 million years, but then something changed, and new complexity arose. Learn how the first stars formed and how their lives—and deaths—created the ingredients for the next threshold.
Learning Objectives:
- Describe star formation.
- Explain how stars created new complexity in the Universe.
Vocab Terms:
It’s time to see how much you know—or think you know—about stars. Test your knowledge of how stars begin and end.
When the Universe first lit up, it crossed the second Big History Threshold. What were the “Goldilocks Conditions” that allowed this to happen?
Sometimes students need a helping hand when you’re using video in the classroom. You can turn on captions, slow down the speed of the video, and have students follow along by reading the video transcript. For more video tips, check out the OER Project Video Guide.
How did tiny atoms come together to light up the Universe? Find the answer to that question and more in this video, slideshow, and activity.
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Guiding Questions
How Stars Form
Did you know that our knowledge of stars is partly thanks to a group of nineteenth-century computers? Now, you might be saying, “but wait, the first computer wasn’t built until 1941,” and you would be correct. Learn more about women “computers” such as Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin and their contributions in this blog post.
Want to explore the contributions of another woman who helped us catalog and classify stars? Check out “Wonder Woman of History: Annie Jump Canon.”
As recently as 100 years ago, scientists didn’t know what stars were made of. One graduate student changed that by using her intuition—and examining the evidence.
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Guiding Questions
Allow small groups to read the article together and assign each group member a role: vocabulary master, claim cruncher, evidence gatherer, or content connector. As they read, have each group member take notes for their assigned task. When they’re finished, have students meet up with a different group to share their thoughts and discuss the reading.
Help your students get the most out of the claim-testing activities by breaking the activities up into smaller tasks or completing one portion of the activity as a class. Find more activity tips on page 7 of our Differentiation Guide.
It’s never a bad idea to turn to an authority when you have a question. In this activity and article, you’ll do some thinking on who actually is an authority on star formation.
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Guiding Questions
Take a look at some amazing student examples of star comics by joining this conversation in the OER Project Teacher Community.
How would you draw star formation in comic form? Use pictures and words to illustrate your star comic.
There are lots of questions we still have about the early Universe. And there are some questions that have been answered in recent years. Grab your headphones and some drawing materials for this audio and activity set.