Handouts are available below.

Big Idea

This year, I’m trying to find ways of getting students engaged at the start of class and connecting it to the brain breaks I give students during class. Here’s something I tried with my classes recently that worked well – which employed some music and history from the Golden Record placed on the Voyager satellites.

Episode Notes

Here’s how I’m using this opener.

1. Before the start of class, hook up my speakers to my laptop and have the Golden Record playlist queued up on Youtube (link included in my handouts below).
2. At the start of class, tell students that I’ll be playing the opening to 5 songs which come from the same playlist. I want students to listen to the songs and figure out what the name of the playlist is.
3. Play 10-15 seconds of each song.
4. After the last song is played, give students 1 minute to talk to their lab partner.
5. Now, I tell students to hang onto their answers. We’ll come back to this later.
6. Start lesson. I try to get through some notes.
7. When I finish a section in my notes and it looks like students need a brain break, I’ll go back to the songs. I’ll ask students what they thought the name of the playlist from which the songs came from is.
8. After, I’ll tell students that the songs come from the Golden Record, which was placed on the Voyager satellites. I’ll give students some history to the Voyager satellites. And, if there’s time, I’ll go to the Golden Record website (link included in the handouts) to view the images on the Golden Record. Ask students to view the images through the eyes of an alien. What would aliens think is going on in the images?
9. The brain break may take between 5-10 minutes, depending on whether I look at the images or not. After, go back to my lesson.

Resources

Handout(s): Ep 74 – Using the Voyager Music Playlist as a Science Bellringer

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