Jewel of the Solar System: Part 3 – Discovering Saturn: The Real 'Lord of the Rings'

1. Prepare your students for their scientific “reading investigation” with the following conversation guide:

When scientists are about to start an investigation with their own questions, they often look up what other scientists have already discovered. Reviewing what is already known often causes scientists to come up with even more questions. As the Cassini-Huygens scientists have been investigating Saturn, they have learned many new things — and they continue to want to learn more as they uncover more details.

In an earlier activity, you have already begun to think and act as scientists in this way by observing (“What I Notice” chart) and questioning (“What I Wonder” chart). However, noticing and observing something is only a step towards “knowing” something. Knowing, in the science community, is a matter of something that can be tested and then “claimed” because it is supported by evidence. When you stood before a picture, you could “claim” something about the picture, based on what you noticed. But until you can test that claim, or research a reliable source to find that it is true, you have no evidence that your claim is true. There is an important difference between “claims” and claims supported by “evidence.”

In this session, you will continue as “scientists” to investigate what has been learned so far about Saturn. Each of you will become a “science expert” in one area of Saturn, by working with one of the four mini-books in the series “Saturn, the Real Lord of the Rings.” What you will see in the mini-books are examples of things that scientists noticed or wondered about — and then tested so they could make claims supported by evidence.

Scientists often prepare presentations to share what they have learned with other scientists. You are going to need to work together to share information about Saturn. We will form teams, and each member of a team will be responsible for sharing what they learn with the rest of the team.

2. Have students “count-off” to form teams of 4. Have each team work at a separate table.
3. Have the students retrieve their Saturn Discovery Logs. Tell them they will be taking notes in these logs. Tell them they will later share those notes with each other, and in the next session, use them to play a game.
4. Hand out 4 different mini-books to each team and assign students to each book. (Note: If students’ reading level does not match the mini-books, then you as the leader can read aloud to the whole group, asking each student to “take a specialty” and take notes on their choice of “specialty book” from the four books.)
5. Hand out an uncut copy of the Saturn/Cassini Match Game Question Cards for each team.
6. Tell them that they should write down a few words to describe anything they read that interests them, that they think is important or worth knowing about Saturn, and look for the answers to the questions on the Saturn/Cassini Match Game Question Cards, which they will use in the next session. Suggest some ideas for what might be “most important” about Saturn, such as “Saturn is very big,” “Saturn is far away and very cold,” “Saturn is beautiful,” “Saturn has the most complicated rings of all the planets,” and some questions from the Saturn/Cassini Match Game Question Cards.
7. Allow about 20 minutes for students to read their mini-books and take notes.
8. Explain to the students that, to help them report what they learned to the other students in their team, they should identify and write down the five or so most important or interesting facts about Saturn from their notes.
9. Have each student present the main points about Saturn from their mini-books with the rest of their team.
10. Collect the mini-books.

When scientists are about to start an investigation with their own questions, they often look up what other scientists have already discovered. Reviewing what is already known often causes scientists to come up with even more questions. As the Cassini-Huygens scientists have been investigating Saturn, they have learned many new things — and they continue to want to learn more as they uncover more details.

In an earlier activity, you have already begun to think and act as scientists in this way by observing (“What I Notice” chart) and questioning (“What I Wonder” chart). However, noticing and observing something is only a step towards “knowing” something. Knowing, in the science community, is a matter of something that can be tested and then “claimed” because it is supported by evidence. When you stood before a picture, you could “claim” something about the picture, based on what you noticed. But until you can test that claim, or research a reliable source to find that it is true, you have no evidence that your claim is true. There is an important difference between “claims” and claims supported by “evidence.”

In this session, you will continue as “scientists” to investigate what has been learned so far about Saturn. Each of you will become a “science expert” in one area of Saturn, by working with one of the four mini-books in the series “Saturn, the Real Lord of the Rings.” What you will see in the mini-books are examples of things that scientists noticed or wondered about — and then tested so they could make claims supported by evidence.

Scientists often prepare presentations to share what they have learned with other scientists. You are going to need to work together to share information about Saturn. We will form teams, and each member of a team will be responsible for sharing what they learn with the rest of the team.

1. In this session, students are going to use the notes they took in their Saturn Discovery Logs to help their team win the Saturn/Cassini Match Game, by being the first team to match all questions with the correct answer.
2. Return the Saturn Discovery Logs to the students.
3. Give each team a large piece of chart paper, a marker pen, and glue sticks or clear tape in a dispenser.
4. Ask the teams to draw lines to divide their chart paper into four equal sections, and label each section as follows: Saturn, Saturn’s Rings, Saturn’s Layers, Saturn’s Moons.
5. Pass out the Question Cards, Answer Cards, and scissors for each team, and have students cut out the playing cards.
6. Have students shuffle all cards (both questions and answers) into one stack in the middle of the table.
7. Explain to the students the rules for the game and post them on the board as you explain them, using the conversation guide below:

At the game start, your team will take all the cards and lay them out individually on the table, face up.

When I say “Go!”, use the notes you took in your Saturn Discovery Log, and work together as fast as you can to match as many answers to their correct question as you can.

Glue (or tape) the matched pairs side by side on your piece of chart paper, placing them under the section that best matches them (Saturn, Saturn’s Rings, Saturn’s Layers, Saturn’s Moons).

When you believe you have all questions and answers correctly matched and placed in the right section of your chart paper, call out “Done.” When every team is done, we’ll check the matching pairs.

8. Set the teams to working on the game. If students are having difficulty finishing the game, pass out the sets of mini-books to refresh their memories.
9. Number the teams in order as they finish.
10. When all teams have finished their game chart, post all charts on the wall, and check the matches using the Saturn/Cassini Match Game Answer Key. The earliest team to finish with the correct answers wins.

At the game start, your team will take all the cards and lay them out individually on the table, face up.

When I say “Go!”, use the notes you took in your Saturn Discovery Log, and work together as fast as you can to match as many answers to their correct question as you can.

Glue (or tape) the matched pairs side by side on your piece of chart paper, placing them under the section that best matches them (Saturn, Saturn’s Rings, Saturn’s Layers, Saturn’s Moons).

When you believe you have all questions and answers correctly matched and placed in the right section of your chart paper, call out “Done.” When every team is done, we’ll check the matching pairs.

1. Scientists and engineers are responsible for sharing their discoveries with the rest of the scientific community in a way that engages them. Remind students that they have been learning different ways of communicating their science discoveries: journaling, drawings, making models, etc. Now, they will continue as scientists and engineers to engage their “science community” with the information they have just learned in the mini-books by making a poster.
2. Explain to the students that in this session they will be using the information they gathered in the last session to create a giant poster about Saturn and its rings, layers, and moons.
3. Divide students into new teams, grouped together by the mini-book for which they were experts. If there are students who missed the earlier sessions, assign them to the smaller teams and encourage the team to share what they’ve learned. If your teams are too large for everyone to participate in designing drawing on the poster, make extra teams and assign them one of the books. Hand each team the mini-book that matches their poster theme. Show the group a sample of NASA poster art.
4. Give them instructions using the following conversation guide:

You will create a poster like the sample poster art, but the poster your team makes will reflect the theme of your particular mini-book.

You remember that we talked about the difference between claims and evidence. When we notice something, we can make a claim, but we need the evidence to say that we “know” it. Now that we have read the mini-books on Saturn from scientists at NASA, you can design your posters with claims that have been tested and have “evidence” from discoveries of the Cassini-Huygens mission. Put information you learned from the mini-books on your poster.

As you work on your poster, think about what you originally “noticed” and what you now “know” from Cassini-Huygens scientists’ discoveries (claims supported by evidence).

Since answers to science questions often raise new questions, each team should add to their poster one new question you have about your Saturn theme.

5. Give each team a large piece of chart paper. They can use tempera paints, collage, or any other media to make their Saturn posters. Be sure they have broad-tip markers for writing the text.
6. As they finish, hang the posters.

You will create a poster like the sample poster art, but the poster your team makes will reflect the theme of your particular mini-book.

You remember that we talked about the difference between claims and evidence. When we notice something, we can make a claim, but we need the evidence to say that we “know” it. Now that we have read the mini-books on Saturn from scientists at NASA, you can design your posters with claims that have been tested and have “evidence” from discoveries of the Cassini-Huygens mission. Put information you learned from the mini-books on your poster.

As you work on your poster, think about what you originally “noticed” and what you now “know” from Cassini-Huygens scientists’ discoveries (claims supported by evidence).

Since answers to science questions often raise new questions, each team should add to their poster one new question you have about your Saturn theme.

1. Show the students a 3-inch-diameter polystyrene or rubber-band ball, or fresh orange, and tell them it represents Saturn. The outer edges of Saturn’s most visible rings span about twice the diameter of Saturn.
2. Ask them how big they think Titan would be in a scale model. At this scale, a peppercorn (or built-in pencil eraser) represents the moon Titan. Show the students this model Titan.
3. Ask the students how big they think our Moon is compared to the Earth. (Earth’s Moon is ¼ the diameter of Earth.) Ask them to suggest materials to represent that relationship. To be on the same scale as a 3-inch Saturn, Earth would be the size of a large green pea (or small blueberry) and Earth’s Moon about the size of a rice grain. See if the students’ suggested materials are about those sizes. If not, were they too big or too small?
4. Capture this model as a drawing. Ask the students to create in their Saturn Discovery Logs a scale drawing of Saturn, its rings, and Titan by measuring the diameters of the model pieces and transferring the measurements to their paper.
5. Ask students to label as much of the drawing as possible.