Date: June 4, 2010

Title: StarryTelling™ at Alice Deal Middle School

Podcaster: Christopher Hyun (narrator), Samantha, Felicia, Nicky, Nathan, Ayah, Rahsaan, Joseph, Elizabeth, Johanna, Greer, Asa, Ellie, Xiu

Organization: Giraffe ‘n’ Ant Productions – www.giraffenant.com Produced by Elizabeth Wallace
School: Alice Deal Middle School, Washington DC – http://www.dealpta.org/
Teachers: Christopher Hyun, Barbara Clements, Elizabeth Bordogna, Hillary Mason, Carole Philip, Christine Popadich, Amy Wadsworth

Description: StarryTelling™ is the celebration of our connection to the universe and our personal sense of awe through imaginative stories inspired by our contemporary knowledge of astronomy. While our ancestors may have told stories around a fire when the work was done, our students rap their way through the universe, shop in galaxy malls as well as go on quests for antimatter or settle interplanetary disputes. A special thank you to the Language Arts and Science teachers at Deal who collaborated to create these stories, some of which were featured at the I’m a StarryTeller™ program under the stars at the Einstein Planetarium, National Air and Space Museum. The students welcome your comments!

Bio: Alice Deal, a public middle school founded in 1931, has a long history of providing outstanding education to students in Washington DC. It is in its final year of candidacy in its pursuit of the International Baccalaureate World School status. The IB program provides a framework and academic challenges which encourages students to embrace as well as understand the connections between traditional subjects and the real world.

Today’s sponsor: This episode of “365 Days of Astronomy” is dedicated to truck drivers looking at the stars, desiring to know more about them.

Transcript:

Once upon a time, somewhere in the universe, there was a spiral galaxy. Some people called it the Silver Stream, other’s the Bride’s Veil, and still others, the Milky Way. In one of its curved arms, it nestled a solar system in which there were eight planets, as well as a few dwarf planets. One of the planets was called Earth. On one of its landmasses was a continent called North America, and on that continent a country called the United States, and in that country a city called Washington DC, and in that city, a middle school called Alice Deal, where all of the students were made of stardust. We invite you to listen to their stories forged from the stars.

****

I look up at the sky and see, and wonder.
Is what’s in the sky reflecting down on me?
It will always be a wonder that I will always ponder.
I know so little, as I look up at all the answers.
To me and everyone around me and the world,
Why? Is my question at every corner.
How does the universe work?
It’s all up there
Away from human eyes
Yet we discover their secret treasures up above.
We learned of planets, and light, dark, space and time.
There are so many wonder to behold, of beyond, of here, of now.

****

Once upon a time there were 4 planets and one dwarf planet. All the names of these planets and dwarf planet were Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Pluto. While one of these planets/dwarf planets called Pluto thought “Why was I called a dwarf planet and different from everybody else?” Then Pluto started crying because no one would tell him why he was different and called a dwarf planet. So Venus, Mars and Jupiter when to Pluto and said “It’s okay, you’ll feel better soon.” Then Venus went out to the spiral galaxy and went shopping. Then she met a new friend named Uranus and said “So, where are you from?” and Uranus said “I’m from the Milky Way galaxy, and you?” Venus answered, “Me, too!” And she said, “Uranus, how come I don’t see you around?” and he said “Because I’m the 7th planet from the Sun.” Venus and Uranus became good friends. The next day, Jupiter asked Venus, “So how was your day?”and Venus said “Well, I met a new friend and his name was Uranus.” After that Jupiter and Venus went to go find Mars to talk to Pluto. Jupiter, Venus and Mars went to go find Pluto and they found him. They said to him, “We finally know why you’re different, Pluto. You orbit the Sun different from other planets.” After that he stopped thinking. So that day Pluto, Venus, Mars and Jupiter went to hang out with the Sun and talked all day and had fun. It was the Sun’s birthday and the Sun was turning 20 years old. Then they all started to do their job, which was to orbit Sun again. The End.

****

One night, a boy named George found his father’s ladder on the side of his house. “I’m going to go on the roof!” he said, so he climbed up onto the room and sat down. He looked up in the sky and looked at the stars. But he saw some other things that looked like stars. But they were different. They were larger than the stars. “I think I will name these odd dots in the sky,” George said. That little red one closest to the Sun during the day I will name Mercury because it is my favorite element. The two that seem closest to here I will name Mars and Venus because those are my mother and father’s names. I will name the place that I live on Earth because there is lots of earth here. The four that are farthest away I will name Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, because those are my brothers’ and sisters’ names.” “Come eat dinner!” he heard his mother say. “Okay!” he said. When he was going inside he looked at the night sky one more time last time and said “Planets, I will call them planets.”

****

A long time ago in a pinprick far, far away, King Jupiter, king of the planets had called a meeting of his most trusted planets. King Jupiter, a greedy king, wanted to expand his court to other places. All the other planets though just wanted more room. They were all squashed together. So King Jupiter spoke: ” Okay, I have called you all here today because we have a problem in our midst. We do not have enough room to move around. There is space everywhere, and we are stuck in this tiny pinprick. And so I have devised a way for us to get more room. I have entrusted my two greatest scientists, Uranus and Neptune, to create something that I call the Big Bang. It will expand the pinprick so we have a larger court to rule over. I shall now hand the microphone over to Uranus.”“Ahem, thank you King Jupiter. Anyway, this big bang is essentially a giantic machine that will blow up the pinprick. And, if it works correctly, it will expand the pinprick so King Jupiter will be able to expand, I mean, I mean, I mean, we will all get more room to move around in.”So…the problem is that it’s missing a certain component called antimatter and its at the very edge of the pinprick. We need a real warrior to do it.At this point, King Jupiter pushed Uranus out of the way and said “Come on you, you cowards! Can’t any of you go and get the antimatter from the edge of the pinprick?” So suddenly, Mars spoke up! ” I can do it!” King Jupiter said “Who said that? Who said that?” “Down here! I can do it!” “What you? You’re like.. tsk ha…Millions of you could fit in me! Geesh, you’re so small you would probably get squashed.” “Oh, yeah? I’ll show you!” and he stormed out the doors in a huff. Mars called to his horse and road across the pinprick. It was a long and hard journey. There was no water to be found. There were many monsters he had to fight through to get to the antimatter. He got the antimatter and started back on the return journey. Eventually after a week had passed, he arrived back at the palace. He returned and said, “I have the antimatter!” All the planets cheered him. He gave the antimatter to Uranus who put it in the Big Bang and the Big Bang exploded and the pinprick expanded. King Jupiter surveyed over his new kingdom…….

****

Once upon a time, Earth and Mars were orbiting the Sun. Mars tells Earth, “You know, Earth, you might have humans, trees and all that stuff, but I’m way better.” Earth says, “Ummm, you just explained how I am better than you and I don’t just have humans and trees. I have a lot more. Plus, all you have is just rocks and dust!” This makes Mars so angry he gets even redder. Both planets are arguing and yelling. Then suddenly a pretty star comes along and says, “Both of you are good and, so what, you may be different but that’s what makes you two unique!” Then both planets calmed down.” Then Mars says, “You know what? You are a good planet!” “No, you’re a good planet.” “I said you’re a good planet!” “And I said YOU!” Now both planets argue again. When the star sees them both arguing again, she says “Oh, brother!”

****

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Lily. One day when she was lying down looking up at the night sky, she noticed the stars weren’t as bright as they used to be. So she built a space shuttle and went into outer space. She found a really sad star and asked him why he was sad. The star said that no one bothered to look at him so why shine bright and be happy? Lilly tried her hardest to cheer him up by saying “I look at you and I notice you!” but the star was still sad. So Lilly went back to Earth thinking she didn’t help at all. One week later, Lilly was staring up into the night sky and noticed it was brighter, especially this one star. Lilly now knew she did make the star happy.

****

Flying through the universe at supersonic speed
We met up with this alien, his name Creed
We took him back to Earth to show him our ways
How cool kids live today
We went back to space and spun around
In the new constellation we just found
We looked at Mars, it was hot as could be
We looked at the Sun, it was too hot for me
We went back to Earth with so much knowledge,
Got some money and went to college.
Space is so much fun,
Gotta go back in 3001!

*****

Twinkle twinkle, little star
From the Earth to the Moon is very far.
Millions and billions and trillions of stars
From Earth to Venus to Neptune to Mars.
I wonder if on the space station
You can see a constellation?
If you’re on the Moon, can you see Neptune?
Twinkle, twinkle little star
From the Earth to the Moon is very far.
Millions and billions and trillions of stars
From Earth to Venus to Neptune to Mars.
If you’re on Venus how much will you weigh?
If you’re on Pluto will you float away?
If you’re on the Moon can you see the Sun?
I bet that space is very fun!
Twinkle twinkle, little star
From the Earth to the Moon is very far.
Millions and billions and trillions of stars
From Earth to Venus to Neptune to Mars.
I wonder if on the space station
You can see a constellation?
If you’re on the Moon, can you see Neptune?
Twinkle, twinkle little star
From the Earth to the Moon is very far.
Millions and billions and trillions of stars
From Earth to Venus to Neptune to Mars.
Word….Ow!

*****

We’ve been on Planet Earth since our birth
When the Big Bang made our universe.
It made everything so diverse.
The Virgo cluster is so neat but the Milky Way is hard to beat
Hard to beat
Our solar system is so fun.
Eight planets orbit the Sun.
Our country, city and our school
Make living here, oh so cool!
If skylore is made of stories about the stars, and you’re made of stardust, then, what’s your story?

End of podcast:

365 Days of Astronomy
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