• Introduce these provocations to your students. You can begin with some photos and videos of the northern lights.

• Select a thinking routine such as "See Think Wonder" to support students in coming up with questions and guiding their next steps. Have students display these on their inquiry wall.

• Sort questions into groups.

• Some students may be more interested in the science behind northern lights and the patterns they create. 

• Come up with an essential question, depending on where your students are in their inquiry journey, this may look different. An example: How have traditional ways of life and knowledge sharing through storytelling shaped our way of living?

• Invite an elder in to tell stories of the northern lights. If this is not possible, you can use the provocation videos. 

• Students will then add their new knowledge to the learning wall

• Select a thinking routine such as "Same Different Engage" to support students in comparing these two stories.

• What are the similarities and differences between Eunice and Wilfred's stories?

• Does you family have any stories about the northern lights?

• Why do elders tell us stories? 

• Where do stories like these come from?

• How does exploring our local stories make us more capable?

• Who in our community can help us answer these questions?

• How does learning from our elders make us more capable?

• What patterns do you notice in the northern lights?

• How do you think the northern lights are created?

• Create a PWIM vocabulary display

• AI tools to support reading comprehension and writing

• Word wall with photos to review mathematical and scientific vocabulary

• Speech to text options for writing 

• Take the time to revisit students' curiosities, wonders and questions. 

• Lift up any student curiosities and prior knowledge about what causes the northern lights and how they are formed.

• Watch this above video and allow students time to share and discuss with one another about what they have learned

• You could have students do "I used to think...now I think..." thinking routine to support and synthesize their new knowledge. 

• From this activity, you can add students' new knowledge to the learning wall. 

• There are multiple science activities you could explore such as:

1.  View the northern lights virtually on the Aurora Max website: students could keep a journal to record of the patterns and colours they observed. They could compare this to northern lights in Tuk and identify any similarities and differences. If your school has a telescope, you can observe the northern lights during the some day time hours in the months of December-February. 

2. Explore Aurora ovals: after watching this video demonstration, students can create their own models of this process. Cut an oval ring out of green paper. Using a globe, center the oval over the geomagnetic north pole. Identify an object in the classroom to serve as the “sun” and rotate the globe, challenging students to identify times when the northern lights are visible from their area. 

3. Explore the relationship between Earth's gases and the colours of the northern lights: students can create their own representations of the northern lights colours through a variety of artistic modes. 

• How do stories help explain scientific phenomena? 

• How does our location in Tuk affect the patterns in the northern lights?

• Why do people living near Earth’s north and south poles have more opportunity to see the aurora than people living near Earth’s equator? 

• How do the gases impact the color of the northern lights?

• How have your ideas about the northern lights changed?

• Invite students to challenge themselves with these math tasks. Some students may be able to access them independently. 

• These asks can be opened up and made more accessible by adapting the questions and providing students with extra supports.

• Timelines and numbers can also be changed to be more student friendly and accessible. 

• Encourage students to work in partners and/or groups

A Solar Storm Timeline

• Can you identify one thing you learned from this table? 

• How can you represent this data using images? 

• What tools can you use to help you solve the time elapsed?

• Could you represent this data another way?

Aurora Power

• Can you identify one thing you learned from this table? 

• Can you create your own word problem using data from this table? Ask a partner to solve it.

• What is another way you could organize this data?

• What story does this data tell you?

Sunspot Cycles

• Do you notice any patterns in this table?

• What data stands out most to you and why?

• Desmos Scientific Calculator 

• Elapsed Time Calculator 

• Use this website and have students convert tables to graphs in order to make the data more visual for them. 

• Provide students with choice in selecting manipulatives to support their learning, such as: place-value mats, base tens, tactile clocks and decimal number lines. 

• Students can explore a variety of stories about the northern lights. 

• They can compare these stories to local stories from Tuk and can extend their research to stories from other countries

• New knowledge can be added to the learning wall.

• Further prompt students' understanding of how stories help shape traditions.

• Students can use the "Nanuq" thinking routine to synthesize and summarize their learning.

• Students can use the Akpik thinking routine to identify similarities and differences between stories of the northern lights all over the world.

AI extension: In Canva, you can use the "Magic Design" feature and draft a presentation with AI. Below is a link to an AI created presentation. You can use this resource to share with your students or create a lesson where they assess these presentations across a set of co-created success criteria. Students can come up with their own descriptions to plug in and assess the quality of the presentations.

Poetry: Cinquain poem or a colour poem. 

Narrative: Students can create their own northern lights narrative. 

Expository: comparing stories from different circumpolar countries.

• Scratch Story

• Text-Speech

• Multi- modal stories: demonstration, play, podcast, puppet show, clay animation, stop motion, comic book, song, dance or any other ideas your students may have. 

• Students can explore a variety of Indigenous artists and art pieces depicting the northern lights

• Invite in a local artist to work with your students

• Students can do their own art piece (painting, beading/sewing, drum dance)

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