GEARS Workshop Monday

2011

Welcome• Thanks for joining us!• Paperwork, paperwork, and restrooms.• Breaks – 15 min morning, afternoon, 1 hr

lunch• Parking regs for your site• Food/drink regs for your site

GEARS: Georgians Experience Astronomy Research in

Schools• NASA funded: 3 partners in GA• Virtual School curriculum development• Teacher workshops • Resource Teacher training

• Goal is to have 100% of GA students to be able to access curriculum

GEARS and YOU• You are now part of the GEARS network• You will be invited to follow-up workshops this

academic year for additional training– Fall – Sun & Space Weather– Spring - black holes (probably)

• Please answer multiple choice questions on scantron. Return your test to workshop facilitators.

• Please answer the following some questions that are available on the form on the Monday schedule.

• http://cheller.phy.georgiasouthern.edu/gears/Units/2011Workshop/Monday.html

pretest

Getting Started• Today we’ll get started with some student

understandings• What does it mean to you to be a teacher?• What causes the seasons?• Let’s watch some of this video – and pay

attention to when the students are talking

Private Universe• http://www.learner.org/resources/series28.ht

ml

Weather permitting• Sun measurements (see later for the slides)

Philosophical Statements• Parking Lot• Whiteboarding• 5E’s• Bloom’s Taxonomy, Rigor and Relevance

Whiteboarding• Whiteboarding, on the other hand, is an active

learning process in which evaluation is ongoing and serves to guide the learning process.

• the whiteboard allows students to clarify and define their understanding through verbalization. Putting concepts into words is a powerful means of checking true understanding, as students often do not even realize they do not understand something until they try to explain it.

• http://modeling.asu.edu/modeling/Whiteboarding_DonYost03.pdf

5E’s http://enhancinged.wgbh.org/research/eeeee.html

• Engage: This phase of the 5 E's starts the process. An "engage" activity should do the following: – Make connections between past and present learning experiences – Anticipate activities and focus students' thinking on the learning outcomes of current activities.

Students should become mentally engaged in the concept, process, or skill to be learned.

• Explore: This phase of the 5 E's provides students with a common base of experiences. They identify and develop concepts, processes, and skills. During this phase, students actively explore their environment or manipulate materials.

• Explain: This phase of the 5 E's helps students explain the concepts they have been exploring. They have opportunities to verbalize their conceptual understanding or to demonstrate new skills or behaviors. This phase also provides opportunities for teachers to introduce formal terms, definitions, and explanations for concepts, processes, skills, or behaviors.

• Elaborate: This phase of the 5 E's extends students' conceptual understanding and allows them to practice skills and behaviors. Through new experiences, the learners develop deeper and broader understanding of major concepts, obtain more information about areas of interest, and refine their skills.

• Evaluate: This phase of the 5 E's encourages learners to assess their understanding and abilities and lets teachers evaluate students' understanding of key concepts and skill development.

Bloom’s Taxonomy• Knowledge: remembering or recalling appropriate, previously learned information to draw out factual

(usually right or wrong) answers. Use words and phrases such as: how many, when, where, list, define, tell, describe, identify, etc., to draw out factual answers, testing students' recall and recognition.

• Comprehension: grasping or understanding the meaning of informational materials. Use words such as: describe, explain, estimate, predict, identify, differentiate, etc., to encourage students to translate, interpret, and extrapolate.

• Application: applying previously learned information (or knowledge) to new and unfamiliar situations. Use words such as: demonstrate, apply, illustrate, show, solve, examine, classify, experiment, etc., to encourage students to apply knowledge to situations that are new and unfamiliar.

• Analysis: breaking down information into parts, or examining (and trying to understand the organizational structure of) information. Use words and phrases such as: what are the differences, analyze, explain, compare, separate, classify, arrange, etc., to encourage students to break information down into parts.

• Synthesis: applying prior knowledge and skills to combine elements into a pattern not clearly there before. Use words and phrases such as: combine, rearrange, substitute, create, design, invent, what if, etc., to encourage students to combine elements into a pattern that's new.

• Evaluation: judging or deciding according to some set of criteria, without real right or wrong answers. Use words such as: assess, decide, measure, select, explain, conclude, compare, summarize, etc., to encourage students to make judgments according to a set of criteria.

• http://www.odu.edu/educ/roverbau/Bloom/blooms_taxonomy.htm

Rigor & Relevance

• http://www.leadered.com/rrr.html

Engage - Light• Let’s look at some light sources

Light Sources• Lab. Use diffraction gratings and (if available)

spectrometers. • Classify the light sources into categories. • Justify your categories.

Explain: Light Sources Categories

• Continuous• Emission Line• Absorption Line• What states of

matter for each?

Discuss - States of Matter• Continuous from:• Emission line from :• Absorption Line from:

Sources

Spectral fingerprint • In the Sun, the transition from level 4 to level 2 of

hydrogen produces photons with a wavelength of 486.1nm. In a star twice as hot as the Sun, this transition would produce photons with

• a) half that wavelength. • b) the same wavelength. • c) twice that wavelength. • d) four times that wavelength.

Think Pair Share

Fingerprints• Atoms have particular associated spectral lines

because • a) electrons have only certain allowed energy

transitions. • b) light consists of waves. • c) light waves can show the Doppler effect. • d) photons have only certain allowed orbits. • e) speed of light in a vacuum is a constant.

Think Pair Share

Engage: Stars• 10 minutes: Similarities and differences for

stars as seen in this photo. • List on whiteboards• Zoomable link – off Monday agenda:1:30pm• http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/rel

eases/2009/25/image/q/

Stars

Explore: Melting Nail• Generate a hypothesis in the form of

If ….. Then …. • "If stars are like the nail, then I expect to see

blank blank for hotter stars and blank blank for cooler stars."

• Cheller.phy.georgiasouthern.edu/Units/2011Workshop/Monday.html

Explore: Test Hypothesis• Test your hypothesis. • Modify your hypothesis based on

observations.• Draw conclusions from observations.

Explain: Summarize blackbody properties

Wien’s Law – Color and Temperature

EM Spectrum

EM Waves Laws

Elaborate• Stars are blackbodies. • Use what you have learned so far to create a

hypothesis about the colors of stars and the temperatures of those stars.

Seeing the Sun• What would you see if you were an astronaut

ABOVE the Earth’s atmosphere when you looked at the sun?

• A) A continuous spectrum• B) An emission line spectrum• C) An absorption line spectrum

Think Pair Share

Sun: photosphere is source of continuous – atmosphere of sun absorbs

Sun

Engage: Flux• Imagine driving at night. How do you know if a

motorcycle coming towards you is close or far?

Flux: predict• Make a prediction (and write it down): You

have 2 detectors and a light bulb. If you place the 1st detector 10 cm away from light bulb, how far away do you put the second detector to get one half the detection?

Explore: Flux simulator• =

http://astro.unl.edu/classaction/animations/stellarprops/lightdetector.html

• Handout

Explain: Flux Simulator• What are the two sets of independent & dependent

variables?• What are the relevant control variables in each case. • Some questions to consider: How many data points

do you need for each pairing of independent and dependent variable? Does the answer to this question depend on the situation, or is it the same in every case?

Flux – Graph It and Model it• Handout – Use Excel to make graphs of your 2

experiments• Create a verbal model to describe the graph. • Create a mathematical model to describe the

graph. • Sketch graphs and write 2 models on

whiteboards• Handouts on graphing and modeling.

Time Permitting (if > 45 min)• Linearize the data• handout

Evaluate: Summarize the Law• What is the relationship between power of

bulb and measured flux for a given distance?• What is relationship between the distance and

the measured flux for a given bulb power?

Inverse Square Law

Flux - Evaluate• Use your models to answer the question: You

have 2 detectors and a light bulb. If you place the 1st detector 10 cm away from light bulb, how far away do you put the second detector to get one half the detection?

Brightness of Light• What is intrinsic brightness? How was it

measured in the simulation?• Is that the same as brightness observed or

measured?

Apply simulation to stars• What might you conclude about stars from

this experiment?• Create a hypothesis. • What is your control variable?

Luminosity• Astronomers use term luminosity to refer to

intrinsic POWER of object shining light. • Total of all emitted/radiated energy every

second. • Intrinsic• What does intrinsic mean?

Flux• Flux is a way for an observer to measure brightness

that is observed. • We measure the energy received each second in a

certain area of our detector (square meter). • We can call this ‘fluxiness’• Normal humans often refer to this as intensity – but

astronomers have a different and more complex definition of intensity. Your textbook probably calls what astronomers refer to as flux, intensity.

Ticket Out The Door• What can you learn about stars from

examining their light? - See the form on the webpage.

• Cheller.phy.georgiasouthern.edu/gears/Units/2011Workshop/Monday.html

• Homework: Read Chapter 10 of Bad Astronomy.

• Read your textbook about stars.

Pinhole camera• Sketch how it works. • (optional – inverted, upright, reversed?)• What is list of measurements needed? • Where is your sunscreen/hat? • Need tubes, rulers, teams, paper to write

down answers. • Make careful measurements – need this result

later. Prizes for most accurate

Pinhole Camera

D = diameter – of either Sun or image of Sun on wax paper

d = distance – either from sun to pinhole or image to pinhole

Pinhole math

D = diameter – of either Sun or image of Sun on wax paperd = distance – either from sun to pinhole or image to pinhole

From geometry – vertical angles

Radius is half the diameter

Pinhole Camera• How do we know the actual size of the Sun?• Compute the average diameter of the Sun for

the group. • Compute the % difference of your value from

the group average. • Compute the % error of your value from the

‘known’ value.

% error• Used when know actual value and you are

doing a verification lab. • Provides a measure of the accuracy of your

results (hint – see characteristics of science)

% difference• Used when you don’t know the answer.

Provides a measure of the precision of your results.

• Helps identify outliers.

Accuracy & Precision

Light & Matter• Reflect• Absorb• Transmit• Emit• Scatter • What happens when no matter between

emitter and absorber.