We are very fortunate to have an observatory on our campus.  Mike Connolly comes out during this unit and shows the students the observatory and takes them up into "the dome" to see how the telescope operates.  In addition, we spend a lot of time studying our closest star, the sun.

     Since the universe is such a vast thing, students also do a project in which they study/research a part of space in which they are particularly interested in; then they present/teach that to the rest of the class.