The Universe and Me: Lesson Plan Using James Webb Telescope Images

By Zainab Cheema 

On Tuesday, July 12, NASA released the first photographs taken from the James Webb Space Telescope launched into outer space in February of this year. Around the world, people were astounded by the images: a vast golden nebula nursing a brood of stars; a quintet of galaxies playing a cosmic symphony of light and spirals; and a field of jeweled galaxies pulsating within deep space. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST for short) is so advanced that it will capture images from the earliest moments of our 13.8 billion year old universe; and is set to revolutionize the way we think about deep space. I’ve developed three lesson plans using the telescope images  that you can give to your students, children and friends to help them develop their critical thinking and social and emotional learning skills.

Radical Connection through James Webb

“Wonder is the beginning of all wisdom,” says Aristotle. Wonder is a state of freedom and play that allows us to draw unexpected links and connections. One of the five pillars of Social Emotional Learning is Self Awareness – and there is really no way to know thyself without reaching out to try to know the world and universe that we inhabit. Learning is a way of rebuilding radical connections with one another, and with the past, present, and future that helps you see the cosmic scale of our connectedness. Taking a page from the old Greek master, look at the JWST photographs and work with your learner on the following activity:

• Study the James Webb Telescope images and try to look for patterns and familiar and unfamiliar elements in them. What seems different or unfamiliar about these images? What seems familiar? To help you dig deeper in this last question, what do they remind you of? What other images are called in your head when you look at them?
• By asking your students, children and family members to look deeper, what seems strange and glitteringly alien will break down into colors, patterns, and associations that seem familiar. Ask your students and family members to free-associate words and images and to write or draw them down on paper using crayons, markers, and other materials.  
• Next, ask them to read the National History Museum article on how all human beings are really made out of stardust. Planetary scientist Ashley King observes that “‘It is totally 100% true: nearly all the elements in the human body were made in a star and many have come through several supernovas.” The JWTS images of deeper space capturing the birth and death of stars are not alien but familiar to the very atoms and sub-atoms of our bodies. Ask your students, children and family members to think about the radical connections between self and the images; and about how this knowledge helps them define the terms “self,” “world”, and “universe” differently. 

Stress is a Problem of Scale

If you are anxious about the skyrocketing grocery bill or worrying over college applications or pondering your chances of landing a good job, you are in a state of stress. The issue is that learning can’t effectively take place in the fight or flight mode. Social and emotional learning (SEL)  is designed to teach learners how to effectively manage stress levels so that they can optimally meet the challenges of daily life. Often, managing stress means placing the problem in the proper scale. The James Webb Telescope images are a perfect building block for helping learners practice putting things in the scale of empowerment and perspective. I have developed this SEL activity using the JWTS images that you can give your students, children and family members. 

• Make two columns on a sheet of paper. On the left hand side, ask your learner to write down the last 5 times they experienced stress, worry or discomfort. On the right hand side, ask them to jot down the triggers or reasons that caused it (a peer’s bullying; or skyrocketing rents or mortgages). For younger learners, you may have  to rephrase the question in concrete and relatable ways, such as asking them to write down times when they felt like they wanted to cry or when they felt angry, nervous or grumpy; or when they felt big feelings that they didn’t know what to do with. 
• Next, look at the JWTS images alongside this Cosmic Eye Video that puts the human in the scale of the universe. Ask learners what the Telescope images and Cosmic Eye Video made you feel. Many of the Youtube comments center on how human beings are infinitesimally small in scale to planets and star systems and yet just as miraculous in complexity; or that realizing our connectedness to galaxies makes us realize how inspiring it is to be part of the story of the universe. 

Knowledge is a Limitless Frontier

This Lesson Plan is adapted from The New York Times Lesson Plan on the JWST images (linked in my Further Resources section Below). The James Webb telescope is the most advanced instrument of its time, capable of capturing images and deep space chemical tests never before accessible to us. However, the more it gives us, the more it reminds us how much we still don’t know — we realize that knowledge is truly a limitless frontier. As educators, we can use these dazzling images to spur our students to be reflective about how much more there is to learn and to strive to do more in the fields that interest them. 

• Assign your learners to watch the video James Webb Telescope to Capture the First Images of Big Bang
• Discuss the Telescope as a Time Travel Machine. The telescope is able to photograph objects through the light that they emit or reflect. The speed of light is 299792458 meters per second. This means that the stars, galaxies and supernovas that we are seeing may no longer exist in our present time. The James Webb telescope gives us glimpses into the universe 100-200 million years after the Big Bang. You may supplement this discussion with a quick video on Einstein’s theory of time dilation.
• Ask your learners to write or draw what they would expect to see if they were able to get to the galaxies and nebulas represented in the JWST images in real time. What changes would have occurred? 
• Finally ask them to reflect: Given all the new knowledge that the James Webb telescope is giving us, what is it not showing us? What would they like to see or hear or touch in the universe that we currently are not able yet to access? 

Let me know how it goes!

Further Resources

Casel’s Principles of Social and Emotional Learning

NASA Website on first JWST Images

Situation Critical on Human Universe Connections

New York Times Lesson Plan on JWST Images

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