Post #3: Web Resources

Site 1: The Dark Sky Institute has webpages specifically designed for high school students.

http://darkskyinstitute.org/



Site 2: The University of Tennessee, Knoxville has a number of complete courses posted on their website. The section of interest for our needs is 27.

http://csep10.phys.utk.edu/astr162/lect/index.html



Site 3: The Astronomy.com website that clearly shows how observations of the night skies are done. This site has relevant information for night time observers no matter what their experience level may be. Many links clearly show how observational astronomy is done.

http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default/aspx



Site 4: This site is the business!! Lots of current information related to current astrophysical research projects! For scientists, it does not get much better!!

http://hubblesite.org/newscenter

Post #2: California Content Standard

Earth Sciences

Earth's Place in the Universe
1. Earth-based and space-based astronomy reveal the structure, scale, and changes in stars, galaxies, and the universe over time. As a basis for understanding this concept:
g. * Students can describe how the red-shift from distant galaxies and the cosmic background radiation provide evidence for the "big bang" model that suggests that the universe has been expanding for 10 to 20 billion years.

Investigation and Experimentation

1. Scientific progress is made by asking meaningful questions and conducting careful investigations. As a basis for understanding this concept and addressing the content standards, students should develop their own questions and perform investigations. Students will become conversant with: knowing that when an observation does not agree with an accepted scientific theory, the observation is sometimes mistaken or fraudulent (e.g., the Piltdown Man fossil or unidentified flying objects) and that the theory is sometimes wrong (e.g., the Ptolemaic model of the movement of the sun, moon and planets).

Content Standards from Science Content Standards for California Public Schools

Post #1: Lesson Objective

We have been studying the Big Bang and cosmogenesis over the last few weeks and I seek to increase the engagement of my students with respect to these topics.