While students are learning about the discoveries that led to the current heliocentric model of the solar system, have them focus on the story of Galileo Galilei. In this activity, students will create a narrative of Galileo's discovery of Jupiter's moon. You can also encourage students to research other important discoveries related to the solar system and create narratives for the scientists involved.
For an alternative to this assignment, have students create a timeline poster to incorporate into a presentation or gallery walk. Students can focus on one narrative or several discoveries that came led to the current model. You can add more than one template to this assignment to give students lots of options and adjust the instructions accordingly.
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Student Instructions
Create a narrative storyboard explaining how Galileo’s observations of the moons of Jupiter changed the way we think about the solar system.
Enhance your lesson by adding primary source documents—such as Galileo’s own letters or telescope sketches—so students see history through Galileo’s eyes. This brings authenticity and deepens engagement with the scientific process.
Choose excerpts or images that are manageable and interesting for your students. For grades 2–8, use short translated passages, labeled diagrams, or images of Galileo’s notes to make content accessible.
Prompt students with guiding questions like, “What do you notice?” or “How did Galileo record his findings?” so they think critically about the document and connect it to their narrative.
Encourage students to reference details from the sources in their storyboards, such as Galileo’s telescope design or his descriptions of Jupiter’s moons, to add historical accuracy and enrich their narratives.
Lead a brief conversation on what students learned from working with original documents, emphasizing how primary sources help us understand real scientific breakthroughs and bring history to life.
Galileo’s discovery of Jupiter’s moons in 1610 provided evidence that not everything orbits the Earth, supporting the heliocentric model and changing our understanding of the solar system’s structure.
A historical narrative lesson about Galileo has students create a story or storyboard describing how his observations of Jupiter’s moons challenged old beliefs and advanced our view of the universe.
Students can research Galileo’s key discoveries, then organize events on a poster in chronological order, using visuals and short descriptions to illustrate how each step led to our modern solar system model.
Galileo is important because he used a telescope to make groundbreaking observations, such as discovering Jupiter’s moons, which provided strong evidence for the heliocentric model of the solar system.
Creative approaches include making storyboards, timeline posters, or gallery walks where students illustrate and present Galileo’s discoveries and their impact on astronomy.