How to Find the Aries Constellation

How to Find the Aries Constellation The Aries constellation, one of the oldest-known star patterns, is located right next to the constellation Taurus. Discover how to find Aries and its fascinating deep-sky objects during your next sky-gazing session. Finding Aries Aries is most visible in the month of November. To find Aries, look for a crooked line of three bright stars not too far from the Pleiades star cluster. The stars of Aries lie along the zodiac, the path the Sun and planets appear to follow across the sky during the year. The stars of Aries, plus a galaxy challenge. Carolyn Collins Petersen   History of Aries The name Aries is the Latin word for ram. In the constellation Aries, two stars make up the points of a rams horn. However, this constellation has had a wide range of different interpretations throughout history. The sky pattern was associated with a farmhand in ancient Babylon, a porpoise in the South Pacific, a pair of bureaucrats there in ancient China, and the god Amon-Ra in ancient Egypt. Aries and Meteor Showers Avid skywatchers know Aries from the meteor showers that bear its name and appear to radiate from the constellation at different times throughout the year, including: Delta Arietids (between December 8 and January 2)Autumn Arietids (between September 7 and October 27)Epsilon Arietids (between October 12 and 23)Daytime Arietids (between May 22 and July 2) All of these outbursts of meteors are associated with the material left behind by comets as they make their way around the Sun. Earths orbit intersects the comets paths, and as a result they appear to flow from the constellation Aries.   The official IAU constellation chart for Aries. IAU/Sky Publishing   The Stars of Aries The three brightest stars of Aries constellation are officially called alpha, beta, and gamma Arietis. Their nicknames are Hamal, Sharatan, and Mesarthim, respectively. Hamal is an orange giant star and lies about 66 light-years from Earth. Its about 91 times brighter than our Sun and is around 3.5 billion years old.   Sharatan is a fairly young star, slightly  more massive than the Sun and about a third brighter than our star. It lies nearly 60 light-years away from us. It also has a companion star that is much dimmer and orbits at a distance that still hasnt been determined.   Mesarthim is also a binary star and lies about 165 light-years away from the Sun. There other, fainter stars in Aries, too. For example, 53 Arietis is a runaway star that was violently ejected from the Orion Nebula (at the heart of the constellation Orion) in its youth. Astronomers suspect that a nearby supernova explosion sent this star on its way across space. Aries also has a few stars that are orbited by extrasolar planets.   Deep-sky Objects in Aries Aries contains several deep-sky objects that can be discovered through binoculars or a small telescope. The spiral galaxy NGC 772 in Aries. Adam Block/Mount Lemmon Skycenter/University of Arizona. CC-BY-SA 3.0   Perhaps the most interesting is the spiral galaxy NGC 772, which lies south of Mesarthim, and its companion galaxy, NGC 770. Astronomers refer to NGC 772 as a peculiar galaxy because it appears to have some structures not always seen in regular spiral galaxies. Its a star-forming galaxy and lies about 130 million light-years away.  Its very likely that its interesting shape (with one very bright blue arm prominently displayed) is due to an interaction with its companion. A few other very distant and dim galaxies are scattered throughout Aries, including NGC 821 and Segue 2, which is actually a companion galaxy to the Milky Way.

How to Use a Running Record to Assess Beginning Readers

How to Use a Running Record to Assess Beginning Readers A running record is an assessment method that helps teachers evaluate students reading fluency, ability to use reading strategies, and readiness to advance. This assessment emphasizes the students thought process, which allows teachers to go beyond counting the number of words read correctly. In addition, observing a students demeanor while reading (calm, relaxed, tense, hesitant) provides valuable insight into his instructional needs. Running records can be used to guide instruction, track progress, and choose appropriate reading material. A running record is slightly more formal than simple observation assessments, but it is still an easy tool for measuring reading fluency. Tracking Errors The first aspect of a running record is tracking student errors. Errors include misread words, mispronounced words, substitutions, omissions, insertions, and words that the teacher had to read. Mispronounced proper nouns should only be counted as one error regardless of how many times the word appears in the text. However, all other mispronunciations should be counted as one error each time they occur. If a student skips a line of text, count all words in the line as errors. Note that mispronunciations don’t include those pronounced differently due to a child’s dialect or accent. Repeated words do not count as an error. Self-correction- when a student realizes he has made an error and corrects it- does not count as an  error. Understanding Reading Cues The second part of a running record is analyzing reading cues. There are three different reading cue strategies to be aware of when analyzing a student’s reading  behavior: meaning, structural,  and  visual.   Meaning (M) Meaning cues indicate that a student is thinking about what she is reading. She is taking cues from the context of the passage, the meaning of the sentence, and any illustrations in the text. For example, she may say street when she encounters the word road. This error doesn’t affect her comprehension of the text. To determine whether the reading behavior reflects the use of a meaning cue, ask yourself, â€Å"Does the substitution make sense?† Structural (S) Structural clues indicate an understanding of English syntax- what sounds right in the sentence. A student who uses structural clues is relying on  her knowledge of grammar and sentence structure. For example, she may read goes instead of went, or  sea instead of ocean. To determine whether the reading behavior reflects the use of a structural cue, ask yourself, â€Å"Does the substitution sound right in the context of the sentence?† Visual (V) Visual cues show that a student is using his knowledge of the appearance of the letters or words to make sense of the text. He may substitute a word that looks visually similar to the word in the sentence. For example, he may read boat instead of bike or car instead of cat. The substituted words may start or end with the same letters or have other visual similarities, but the substitution does not make sense. To determine whether the reading behavior reflects the use of a visual cue, ask yourself, â€Å"Does the substituted word look like the misread word?† How to Use a Running Record in the Classroom Select a passage that is appropriate for the student’s  reading level. The passage should be at least 100-150 words  long. Then, prepare the running record form: a double-spaced copy of the text the student is reading, so that errors and cue strategies can be recorded quickly during the assessment. To conduct the running record, sit next to the student  and instruct her to read the passage aloud. Mark the running record form by checking off each word that the student reads correctly. Use notations to mark reading miscues such as substitutions, omissions, insertions, interventions, and self-corrections. Record which reading cue(s)- meaning, structural, or physical- the student uses for errors and self-corrections. After the student finishes reading the passage, calculate her accuracy and self-correction rate. First, subtract the number of errors from the total number of words in the passage. Divide that number by the total number of words in the passage and multiply by 100 to get the percentage of accuracy. For example, if a student reads 100 words with 7 errors, her accuracy score is 93%. (100-793; 93 / 100 0.93; 0.93 * 100 93.) Next, calculate the student’s self-correction rate by adding the total number of errors to the total number of self-corrections. Then, divide that total by the total number of self-corrections. Round to the nearest whole number and place the final result in a ratio of 1 to the number. For example, if a student makes 7 errors and 4 self-corrections, her self-correction rate is 1:3. The student self-corrected one time for every three misread words. (7411; 11/42.75; 2.75 rounds up to 3; ratio of self-corrections to errors is 1:3.) Use the first running record assessment to establish a  student’s baseline. Then, complete subsequent running records at regular intervals. Some teachers like to repeat the evaluation as often as every two weeks for beginning readers, while others prefer to administer them quarterly.