Tag: Free Resources

For the past two years, I’ve been quietly working on a project aimed at making science—particularly astronomy—more accessible and teachable, especially for educators who may not have a formal background in the subject. As someone who doesn’t have a science background, I’ve served as the project’s first test subject: Could I learn the material well enough to teach it? Could I find a way to convey these ideas in a way that felt intuitive, compelling, and grounded in evidence?

The answer turned out to be yes—but only after a great deal of trial and error. And now, I’m excited to share the next stage of the project: a simple, organized set of resources aimed at helping teachers learn the material themselves and feel ready to pass it on to their students. The goal is to make the story of the solar system approachable and teachable, even for those without a science background.

From Learner to Teacher

I came into this project without a science background. My goal was simple: could I learn the material and then teach it to someone else? That process helped me relate to what a new teacher might also struggle with. What was challenging to explain? What kind of details did I need in order to be able to pass the knowledge on to the students I was working with?

One thing became clear early on: having good demonstration tools would be essential. At first, I cobbled together resources I found online, but I eventually realized I would need to build them myself. There were a lot of tools that just didn’t exist, and I didn’t want teachers to have to scavenge for these resources on their own. I wanted everything they needed all in one place.

The Tools

The tools I’ve built are meant to make it easy for a teacher to demonstrate key concepts clearly. For example, take retrograde motion. I’ve integrated an open-source tool called Stellarium into the platform. This tool shows the night sky and comes preloaded with a date and time that demonstrates retrograde motion in action. I’ve added the ability to draw directly on the sky, so teachers and students can track the movement of celestial bodies over time. In the image below, one object is marked in red and another in yellow. Students can see how the yellow body moves with consistent spacing between markers, while the red body’s spacing varies over time—a visual cue that helps highlight the difference between stars and planets and their motion over time.

This is an interactive tool teachers can use with their students to guide them through the kinds of observations they need to make in order to identify two key ideas: first, that planets move differently than stars; and second, how to recognize the phenomenon we now call retrograde motion.

There are many more tools like this, each tailored to support specific learning objectives. They’re designed to help students move from direct observation to theoretical models by making abstract ideas visible and interactive.

The result is a platform that brings together these tools along with lesson plans—everything a teacher would need to teach the material, even without prior experience in astronomy.

What’s Next: Equipping the Teacher

The next stage of the project is perhaps the most important: equipping teachers themselves with the knowledge and confidence to teach the material well. 

Starting next month, I’ll be releasing a series called Tracing the Sky. These short, 10–15 minute videos will come out multiple times per week and guide learners through the course content. They’re designed for anyone curious about how we came to understand the solar system—whether you’re learning for your own interest or because you want to teach it.

I see these videos as the prerequisite step for teachers. Once they’ve followed along and built a basic understanding, they can move on to using the platform and lesson plans I’ve developed to teach the material to their students. These videos aren’t meant to be played in the classroom—instead, they’re designed for the teacher. My hope is that any educator, regardless of their prior familiarity with astronomy, could watch these videos and gain a solid understanding of both the historical development of celestial models and the practical tools available to teach them.

Each video is designed to be the teacher’s starting point—a way to learn the material themselves, step by step. Once they feel comfortable, they can take the next step and explore the platform and lesson plans I’ve created. These plans tie directly into the demonstrations and provide guidance on how each lesson fits into the broader narrative, what questions to ask, and which observations to emphasize.

Closing Thoughts

I’ve come to believe that science education doesn’t need to be intimidating or overly technical. At its best, it should be a process of wonder, reasoning, and discovery—and that’s exactly what the history of astronomy offers. It’s a story of humans looking up at the sky, puzzling over what they saw, and gradually learning to make sense of it all.

If I, as a non-scientist, can learn to tell that story, then I’m confident that others can too. And with the right tools and support, I believe we can help students not only understand the solar system—but appreciate the incredible intellectual journey it took to discover it.

If you’d like to keep up to date with the project and follow along with the videos as I release them, you can sign up for my newsletter here: https://mailchi.mp/7be3350a4b33/tracing-the-sky-newsletter