Home/Curriculum resources/Digital technology and managing Indigenous astronomical knowledge /What is Stellarium?
Learning Area:
Technologies
Year levels:
Level 7, Level 8
What is Stellarium?
This activity is a part of the Digital technology and managing Indigenous astronomical knowledge resource.
Scorpius featuring Mars and Saturn. Photographer: Peter Lieverdink. Source: Flicker. License: CC BY-SA 2.0.
What is Stellarium?
It is a digital planetarium that can accurately display the night sky from anywhere in the world for any time period. It accurately portrays the movements of the Sun, Moon, planets, and stars in real time. It includes 20+ pre-installed sky cultures, each containing imagery, nomenclature, and text describing the objects and its meaning in a given culture. Because of its open-source architecture, it is fully customisable by the end user. This enables Indigenous artists to add and display their own sky culture information.
The following explainer activity may be useful to get acclimatised to the software, or as a student reference guide.
Related activities within this resources:
Inquiry-based learning questions
These inquiry-based questions are provided for flexible classroom use, allowing teachers to tailor discussion and reflections specific to their classroom needs.
Activity 1 - Examining traditional astronomy using Stellarium
In this activity, students will explore traditional astronomy using Stellarium, selecting the Kamilaroi/Euahlayi culture to understand celestial objects and their significance.
Suggested timing:
30-45 minutes
Activity 2 - Reconstructing fragmented knowledge using Stellarium
In this activity, students will use Stellarium to identify stars from Aboriginal traditions, including "Parna," a star used by the Kaurna people in Adelaide to predict autumn rains, incorporating climate data to determine its Western identity.
Suggested timing:
30-45 minutes
Activity 3 - Learning about the UNDRIP document
Within this activity students will engage with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People adolescent reading version to understand the importance of this document and Australia as signatory of it.
Suggested timing:
One or two lesssons