Homeschool Astronomy with Tony Ceraso

This week on Homeschool Highschool Podcast: Homeschool Astronomy with Tony Ceraso.

One of my teens’ favorite sciences during homeschool high school was Astronomy. He loved learning about the fascinating universe outside our atmosphere. He especially loved the many “lab” hours, sitting in lawn chairs with his dad and a small telescope, watching the night sky.

Today’s teens have access to a delightful curriculum thanks to Tony Ceraso and Homeschool Astronomy.

Tony Ceraso’s story

Tony’s mom and Star Trek were integral in getting him into astronomy. Back in the early 1970s when Tony was a child, she would watch the original Star Trek series while he running around at her feet or sitting with her. She would look over at him and say, “I just think space is so fascinating!”

As he grew, Tony joined his mother in loving astronomy. He would put together astronomy lessons in his attic and then force my parents listen to his lesson. (His mother was a teacher, so she had taught him to create his own curriculum by cutting and pasting homemade resources.)

Throughout his teen years, he learned more astronomy and read lots of science fiction.

Then when he got married and had kids of his own, he taught them to love astronomy. In fact, he was often invited to his kids’ classrooms to teach astronomy lessons. The school kids loved the presentations!

Today, Tony works in IT and volunteers at the Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC. Some days he runs their planetarium. He alsos writes curriculum for them.

Then, his wife told their homeschooling friends about his presentations

Soon, he was sharing about astronomy in their local homeschool community and demand for his lessons spread.

That led him to producing digital lessons that combined video, photos, reading and interactions that homeschoolers have been enjoying.

Homeschool Astronomy Curriculum

Tony’s popular 28 lesson Homeschool Astronomy course (14 lessons per semester) was created to help high schoolers love astronomy as much as he does.

Parents enjoy it, as well. This is because the format of the course helps it meet the standards for credit on the transcript. The course includes for each lesson:

an objective
warmup activity
gradable questions
cross-curricular activities
test questions

These are really nice if you need something concrete to put in a portfolio and then on a transcript. The lessons give high schoolers educational experiences that cover material five days per week for about thirty minutes per day.

(He follows New Jersey’s st

Published on 14 hours ago

Podcast Episode Details

Homeschool Astronomy with Tony Ceraso