Walking The Path: High School Lesson Plan Page 1 of 6 Sample syllabus from the University of Washington Astronomy 101 B Introduction to Astronomy Course Syllabus Instructor Information: Mike Solontoi Office hours: TBD, or by appointment Office: PAB-B339 Email: solontoi _AT_ astro.washington.edu TA Information: Chelsea MacLeod Office hours: TBD, or by appointment Office: PAB-B333 Email: cmacleod _AT_ astro.washington.edu Course Information: Class: Tu, Th, 1:10-4:00, in PAA A110 Exams: 7/22 and 8/21 in class. Course website: http://www.astro.washington.edu/solontoi/astro101 Textbook: The Cosmic Perspective: Stars, Galaxies and Cosmology, Fiftth Edition, Bennett, Donahue, Schneider, and Voit. The Fourth edition of this text is also fine. Weekly reading. Extra Credit (3%!) Course Objectives: The goals of this course are - to understand science as a process: how it is done, what skills are involved, how it applies to everyday life, and how it is used to learn about the universe - to understand and apply basics physics concepts to problems in astronomy Course objectives are derived from the course goals and designed to be assessable (ie-things we can grade). By the end of this course, students should be able to: apply scientific thinking to problems in astronomy and other areas understand important concepts in astronomy form a hypothesis design an experiment collect and interpret data, estimate error and understand sample bias understand the nature of light - how it interacts with matter and how we get information from it understand the nature of gravity understand the observational foundations of some of astronomy's greatest discoveries
Walking The Path: High School Lesson Plan Page 2 of 6 These objectives will be achieved through the labs, in-class discussions, and critical thinking homework and mid-lecture questions. They will be assessed using exams, quizzes, homework, labs, and participation. Prerequisites: Algebra is required. We will also use some trigonometry. Other astronomy or science courses are not required. Extra help with the math for this course can be made available to those who request it. Materials: The required text for this course is The Cosmic Perspective, Stars, Galaxies and Cosmology, Fifth Edition, Bennett, Donahue, Schneider, and Voit., (2008) Pearson Education, Inc. This is the abbreviated stars and galaxies version of the larger "Cosmic Perspective" text. The full version also contains material on the solar system and the planets, which will not be covered in this course. If you bought a new copy of this text it should have come with a student access kit for the mastering astronomy website. This website is a companion to the textbook, and has interactive figures, tutorials and self-quizzes on the material presented in the text. If you have access to it I highly recommend you check it out. The Fourth edition of this text is virtually the same, feel free to use it. Another fine source of material is Nick Stroble's web page. This is essentially an online textbook. It presents much of the material we will cover quite well, although not in great detail. I will try to point out the particular chapters of it that supplement our current topic. You can find it at: www.astronomynotes.com You are also encouraged to utilize other resources you may have access to such as old astronomy text books or acquaintances who know some astronomy or other science. Points: Item Labs 25% Homework 30% Midterm 20% Final 20% Weekly Readings 5% Percent of Grade Student Expectations: Students should expect to do the following class-related work: attend class, take in-class quizzes, participate in group discussions at least at the small group level, turn in labs and homework on time at the start of the class in which they are due, and do the necessary reading and studying you require to review what we've covered in lecture. There will often be time allotted for labs and homework in class but writeups and unfinished homework are to be completed outside of class. There will be two major labs this quarter which require data taking outside of class time. I expect a lot of thought to be put into assignments and that they be concise and clear. I expect every member of a group to
Walking The Path: High School Lesson Plan Page 3 of 6 participate an equal amount in labs and in data taking, even if it requires time outside of class. Use the resources available in this class to develop your skills as a scientist. The point of the class is to learn science - not to memorize facts to pass a test! Any student who completely fulfills these expectations should expect to pass this course. Grading: Here are my primary grading criteria: Labs: Did you understand the point of the assignment? Does what you did make sense? Do your answers to "critical thinking" questions demonstrate that you have thought the question through logically? For some questions I am more interested in seeing your thought process than the answer itself. ow well have the scientific skills we've covered prior to the assignment been incorporated? Did your work meet the purpose of the assignment (for example, if we're doing the Hubble Law lab were you able to get through the entire exercise and draw a valid conclusion about the universe)? Were the facts you stated in your work correct? Were your results communicated clearly? This may not be a writing class but good communication skills are important no matter what you do in your life. If I don't understand what you're saying I will have to assume you don't either. Poor grammar and spelling and illegibility will also count against you. Math or graphing errors. If your final answer is not even physically realistic you should think to check your math. I do take points off for bad math that leads to bad results. Did you answer all questions posed? Modern science is done using the scientific method. Research typically follows a pattern that involves background research, forming questions, forming a hypothesis, writing observation proposals, taking observational data, reducing the data into a form that is usable, analyzing the data (looking for patterns/correlations, calculating, graphing, doing statistics), examining how the results agree or disagree with the hypothesis, writing up your work for publication, and possibly reforming your hypothesis to try it all again. In the labs for this class we try to recreate this process as much as possible, keeping in mind that science is an ongoing process in which the "right" answer is something that we are always approaching but never arriving at. Some of the labs we will do are more involved and will need to have a lab write-up. Write-ups for labs will be in roughly the same format as published works. A lab report should have the following sections: Purpose - What are you expecting to do and to learn in this lab? What scientific facts will you verify for yourself in this lab? Setup/Procedure - What equipment was used? What steps were involved in doing the lab? Data - What data were taken? List tables and images. Analysis - Analyzed data including graphs, calculated quantities, uncertainty estimates, equations and methods used to analyze data.
Walking The Path: High School Lesson Plan Page 4 of 6 Questions: Explicitly answer any questions posed in the lab. Conclusions: Comment on whether your lab fulfilled the original purpose. Propose improvements you would make to what you did to reduce uncertainties and get a better result. Propose improvements that could be made to the actual lab procedure to reduce uncertainties and get a better result (eg - using more precise equipment, gathering data in a different way, etc). Here is a sample lab writeup so you can see what this would look like. Exams: There will be two exams: a midterm and a final. Both exams will follow the same format and will involve two kinds of questions - short answer questions on the concepts and material in homework, labs and lecture, and longer problems that test your skills as a scientist. For these you may be asked to design experiments, analyze data and draw conclusions, or evaluate the work of other scientists. Policies: GROUP WORK: I encourage you to take data in groups and discuss results. The ability to work well in a group is an important skill. In this class you are encouraged to work in small groups on all homework and labs both in class and outside of class. More specifically, you are encouraged to share raw data and discuss methods, graphs, results, and hypotheses. But you must still do all your own work. See "CHEATING". CHEATING: Cheating will not be tolerated. A group of people may have the exact same data if they are working together. However, all work you turn in must be yours - all the words, all the calculations, all the graphs, all the thinking. If your work looks too similar to someone else's or too closely resembles something published on paper or online I will suspect cheating and investigate it fully in accordance with the university's policies on cheating. LATE WORK and MISSED EXAMS: Unexcused late work will not be accepted. If you are sick, stay home, but let us know as soon as you can that you will not be in class to turn in your work/participate in the lab. The key is communication.
Walking The Path: High School Lesson Plan Page 5 of 6 Course Outline: Weekly News Readings due every Tuesday starting 7/1! DATE TOPIC ASSIGNMENT DUE READING 6/24 T 6/26 Th 7/1 T Syllabus, Grand Tour of the Universe, Astronomy as a science Sky Motions, Celestial Navigation, Planetarium Eclipses, Tides, Motion of the Planets 7/3 Th Forces and Gravity HW 1 - The Scientific Method (pdf) Lab 1 - Celestial Navigation (html) sample lab writeup (html) HW 2 - Lunar Phases and Sky Motions (pdf) 7/1 Lab 7/29 HW 7/3 HW 3 - Parallax Distance (pdf) 7/8 Lab 2 - Gravity Lab (pdf) Template for Lab 2 (pdf) Ch.1 Ch.3 S.1 Ch.2 Ch.2 Ch.3 7/10 Ch.4 7/8 T Light HW 4 - Light (pdf) 7/15 Ch.5 7/10 Th Doppler Shift, Extra Solar Planets Special and General Relativity HW 5 - Extra Solar Planets (pdf) 7/17 Ch.6 S.2, (S.3) 7/15 T The Sun -- -- Ch.14 7/17 Th Catch-up and Review for Exam -- -- Ch.1-6,14 S.1-3 7/22 T Exam #1 -- -- -- 7/24 Th Stars: Properties and Evolution 7/29 T Stars: Birth and Death HW 6 - Spectral Classification (pdf) Lab 3 - Ages of Star Clusters (html) 7/31 Th The Milky Way and Dark Matter HW 7 Galaxies (pdf) 8/7 8/5 T Galaxy Topics Lab 4 - Hubble Law Lab (html) Galaxy Data Datasheet in (.html) and (.doc) formats 7/31 8/5 8/12-data 8/19-lab 8/7 Th Distance scales, the Hubble Law -- -- Ch.15 Ch.17 Ch.16 Ch.18 Ch.19 Ch.22.2 Ch.20 Ch.21 Ch.20 Ch.21 8/12 T Big Bang Cosmology HW8 - Cosmology (pdf) 8/19 Ch.23 8/14 Th Modern Cosmology, Astrobiology -- -- 8/19 T Catch-up and Review for Exam 8/21 Th Exam #2 Ch.22 Ch.24 Ch.1-6, Ch.14-24, S.1-3
Walking The Path: High School Lesson Plan Page 6 of 6 Astro Links Hubble Heritage Image Gallery (source of images on this page) Astronomy Picture of the Day Nick Strobel's Astronomy Notes Best of the Hubble Space Telescope Realtime updates for the Sun from the satellite SOHO