This year my astronomy students created a My Map of Telescopes of the World. I have been struggling to come up with a way provide an authentic audience for my student and was finally able to dip my toes in the water with this idea.

I contacted some teachers from our elementary school and 1 of them wanted to join in the fun.

My students made a My Map of 22 different Telescopes and included information that they found in their research at each of the pins. We shared this Map with the 4th grade class. (Our tech admin posted a bookmark of our map for all 4th graders on their Chrome Browser. Awesome! 😀) Now during their science class time, or during their free time, they can access the map, learn about a telescope of their choice, and if they want to, they can take the Form Quiz associated with that telescope to earn a badge.

Each Quiz can be taken as many times as the student wants, and when they reach 100%, a badge is sent to them through their gmail account.

Some improvements I am hoping to include next year are: better guidelines for creating infographics to upload, better tips for writing questions at your audiences reading level, as well as more time / opportunities for my students to create their own telescope badges to share with their audience.