Astronomy and Astrophysics theory to high school students.

Astronomy and Astrophysics theory to high school students.

The task for project is to adapt one of the online resources/activities we’ve encountered into a lesson plan introducing a particular concept/topic in Astronomy and Astrophysics theory to high school students. As a reminder of the online resources one can base a lesson plan around, we’ve seen:

Galaxy Zoo and other astronomy related Zooniverse projects.
MESA’s online portal allowing anyone to generate models of stars.
LIGO’s (and the Penn State Gravity Group’s website) educational resources and activities.
cosmoEJS cosmological model simulator (from Unit 13)
Sloan Digital Sky Survey from Unit 10 (which includes several projects from stellar spectra to HR diagrams to cosmology, in addition to the galaxies activity you did.)
WEBDA star cluster data

If you want to use another online resource you have come across, please run it by me first.

NOTE: You do not need to create a lesson plan from scratch; you can use an existing resource or activity as a starting point – but you must make it clear what you created and what is taken/adapted from the existing material. You will also need to add the context material (see below). You must cite fully everything you adapt and all sources of information you used in preparing the plan.

This lesson plan should be something that you would potentially be able to use in your own classroom, and the exact topic and format of the plan should be guided by that consideration. For that reason, I will not impose many specific guidelines, other than the lesson plan should include learning objectives/outcomes with a means to assess them, a general introduction and motivation, and if appropriate some historical context.

You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.