Challenge Team Abstract

Team Number: 056 School Name: Navajo Preparatory School Area of Science: Astronomy Project Title: Navajo and Greek Constellations

Our team will be presenting a simulation of the Earth, moon, sun movements and those of some specific constellations. We want to choose several Greek and Navajo constellations to determine how each relates to the other and how the Navajo and Western civilization forms of thinking compare. We will show the phases of the moon, orbiting of the Earth around the sun and positions of teh stars as they relate to ancient of the Navajo people to important facts in Navajo history. Navajos use various constellations as a calendar to plant and to harvest by, for example.

We hope that we can make the most accurate simulation so we can compare how the constellations appeared in the past and how they relate to their present position in the heavens. We hope to write a program to make a mathematical model of these stellar movements and to create a visual representation of our simulation using the super computer. (MAX. OF 250)

Team Members

• Derrick Yazzie
• Ephraim Anderson
• D'Armond Chee

Sponsoring Teachers

• Suzanne B. Conrad

Project Advisor(s)

• Dr. David Westpfahl