Navigating by the Stars

Students learn how Earth's rotation makes the sky turn around the celestial poles, how to find north with Polaris and measure latitude with it, how Polynesian wayfinders and sailors navigated by the stars, and how precession slowly changes the North Star.

Grades 5-8About 15 minutes of narrated flight, plus discussion stops8 stops

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What students will see and do

Students fly from Earth to the Big Dipper star Mizar, Polaris, Alpha Centauri and the Southern Cross region, Arcturus, Sirius, Thuban and Vega. Aetherion pauses for discussion at Polaris (estimating Polaris's height at your own latitude), Arcturus (why Polynesian navigators combined many clues) and Thuban (how the sky looked to people long ago).

Learning objectives

• Explain how Earth's rotation causes stars to appear to circle around the celestial poles.
• Use the Big Dipper's pointer stars to locate Polaris, and use Polaris's height to estimate latitude.
• Describe how Polynesian wayfinders used rising and setting stars, zenith stars, swells and birds to cross the Pacific.
• Predict how precession, the slow wobble of Earth's axis, changes which star serves as the North Star over thousands of years.

NGSS connections

Stops on this journey

1. A Turning Sky
2. The Big Dipper Points the Way
3. The North Star (discussion stop)
4. Finding South
5. The Star of Gladness (discussion stop)
6. The Brightest Guide
7. A North Star from Long Ago (discussion stop)
8. A North Star of the Future

Vocabulary

• axis
• celestial pole
• North Star
• latitude
• sextant
• wayfinding
• zenith star
• precession