SCIENCE
CONTENT
AND RESOURCES
CLUB ACTIVITIES
Solar System: Ninth Grade through Twelfth Grade
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Space Art
Students are given many different Hubble Space Telescope photos, and encouraged to create their own space art using the archetypes they find for nebulae, planets, stars and galaxies.
Submitted By: Sten Odenwald, Holy Redeemer Elementary/Middle School Astronomy Club -
Stanford Solar Center Spectrometer and Gas Tube Observations
Similar to Atomic Fingerprints and Bar Codes activity. Students construct their own spectrometers from Stanford Solar Center kits. These spectrometers have scales showing wavelengths in angstroms. Students calibrate their spectrometers and are then able to accurately draw emission spectra from different gas glow tubes. Once it is clear that different gasses have different spectral signatures, students are challenged to figure out which gas tube is being used from its spectrum.
Submitted By: Lou Mayo, Sligo Creek Elementary Astronomy Club -
Quiz Show Game
This game generates a lot of energy and enthusiasm! Students divide into teams. Each team picks a name. Then the club leader asks a series of questions on astronomy topics they have already covered. Teams get points for correct answers. A variation on this is having the teams make up their own questions. Additionally, teams can be supplied with text on astronomy as references. (Students love to hum the "Jeopardy" quiz show theme and make "Who Wants to be a Millionaire" jokes while the other teams are working on their answers).
Submitted By: Lou Mayo, Sligo Creek Elementary Astronomy Club -
Detecting Infrared Light
Astronomers peer into the infrared to see molecular lines in atmospheres and stars as well as interstellar dust and protoplanetary disks. Students explore infrared light by aiming a TV remote control at a solar cell (e.g. from Radio Shack or Edmunds Scientific) attached to the input port of a small speaker. Solar cells are sensitive in the near IR so this becomes a cheap IR detector.
Submitted By: Lou Mayo, Sligo Creek Elementary Astronomy Club -
RadioJove
Build a dipole radio telescope and detector to study radio emission from the Sun and from Jupiter's interaction with Io.
Instructions at:
Radio Jove
Submitted By: Lou Mayo, Sligo Creek Elementary Astronomy Club -
Tips for Holding a Viewing Night
I have one online article that may be of interest to ASAC newsgroup members. It is a general introduction and set of suggestions entitled "Tips for holding a viewing night" at:
http://outreach.atnf.csiro.au/education/teachers/viewing/
Submitted By: Rob Hollow, CSIRO Australia Telescope National Facility -
Solar System Stroll
This activity is a good excercise in scale (1 billionth) and will need a great deal of field space. I picked this activity up in a MESSENGER workshop. The experience put the perspective of the solar system in the manner of meters. It will take about two fifty minute sessions.
Materials- 10 meter sticks, poster size paper, tape, 10 pylons and markers
Procedure- divide the club into ten different groups and have them research the sun and the nine planets. On the poster draw the planet, write the planet name or sun, and put some information about the celestial body. Then tape this sign on a meter stick. Then walking at each of these distances below, put a pylon down and place the sign in the pylon. Have each group tell about thier celestial body.
Sun to Mercury (6 paces)
Mercury to Venus (5 paces)
Venus to Earth (4 paces)
Earth to Mars (8 paces)
Mars to Jupiter (55 Paces)
Jupiter to Saturn (65 paces)
Saturn of Uranus (144 paces)
Uranus to Neptune (163 paces)
Neptune to Pluto (142 paces)
Pluto is a bit too far, so if you get to Saturn, students will get a good idea of the expanse of the Solar System.
As an evaluation, I pull out a poster of the solar system and students point out the flaws in the representation. Email me with any questions at charuba33@hotmail.com
Submitted By: Walter Charuba, Brownell Middle School -
Astronomy Screensaver
It's a multi-facetted application that allows you to keep abreast of status reports, news and announcements of events taking place at ESA Science and the most recent near-real-time images from SOHO. I don't know of a NASA equivalent but many of the projects are joint with NASA. For those interested in Solar observations, there's less chance of missing exciting solar storms (like the one that's been going on for the last few days) because the screensaver updates its images whenever you're online.
Download it here: http://sci.esa.int/jump.cfm?oid=34651
Submitted By: Mike Cripps, Neatherd High School Astronomy Club -
Mars Exploration Rover Activity
BotBall is a national competition of Middle and High Schools (although just about any group of kids can compete) to build fully autonomous robots out of essentially very high end Lego Mindstorm kits. These robots move around a playing field sensing distance, heat, light, and touch to accomplish tasks with ping pong balls.....hence the name.
I borrowed a kit from the high school and brought it to our club meeting. We got onto the MER web site and talked about Mars and the rovers. We then outlined what kinds of things a rover would need to do(science objectives) and what hardware it would have to have to do it(e.g. power source, communications system, cameras, etc.). Then I divided the club into three groups and let them go at the kit. We dismissed with the autonomous part of the robots since that requires programming in a form of C++ language - quite a bit beyond these students. But putting together the parts was definitely a hit. We left the partially assembled robots for next week.
I think I will give them a list of tasks the rover will have to perform and subsystems that must be present. In addition, we will probably start the next club with a short video on Mars. When they are finished, I will have the teams present their rovers and suggest that the school put them in a show case (with a picture of the Martian surface in the background).
Though we used the BotBall kits, I suspect that just about any Lego kit could work. Wheels and joints help but could be assembled from other things. Motors are cool but not required.
Submitted By: Sligo Creek Astronomy Club -
Outreach
Most of the Orangevale Open Astronomy Club's activities focus on Outreach to local schools and to local organizations that want to hold a Star Party. We work with our local amateur group, Sacramento Valley Astronomical Society (SVAS). Our school has a ten inch Orion dobsonian and several binoculars, and our club members have about four telescopes, all together. Schools and organizations request Star Parties from SVAS, who then schedules the events.
Before each event we spend some time at school talking about the best targets for the upcoming evening and the kinds of things we will tell the Party-goers. We spend some time with Starry Night software and a large projector picking targets that will appeal to the general public. Then we discuss typical misconceptions that the public might have and the clearest, simplest way to communicate a scientific understanding.
My students also participate in the SVAS annual Astronomy Day at a local park. We've made demonstratio ns, posters, PowerPoint presentations and projects that we show at the events. Usually these presentations coordinate with California State Standards. We have a sun filter for our big telescope and make it available during the day of these events.
Submitted By: Jim Carvalho, Orangevale Open K-8 School
