SCIENCE
CONTENT
AND RESOURCES
CLUB ACTIVITIES
Spaceflight: Third Grade through Fifth Grade
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How Telescopes Work
A lesson about lenses and mirrors. How many different things in your home use lenses to magnify? Students experiment with a number of standard optical components noting the effect that individual and combinations of optics have on the final image.
Submitted By: Sten Odenwald, Holy Redeemer Elementary/Middle School Astronomy Club -
Atomic Fingerprints and Bar Codes
Using glow tubes filled with hydrogen, oxygen, neon, argon, and nitrogen, and 35 mm diffraction gratings, students observe first hand that atoms have unique spectral signatures or "bar codes". Students then compare atomic bar codes with the ones on canned goods. A discussion of how astronomers can tell what stars and planets are made of follows.
Submitted By: Sten Odenwald, Holy Redeemer Elementary/Middle School Astronomy Club -
The IMAGE Satellite Model
Club members construct, from cardboard, a ¼ scale model of the IMAGE satellite from pictures on the NASA IMAGE web site, and draw exterior panel details. They then identify the different parts of the spacecraft and discuss their functions.
Submitted By: Sten Odenwald, Holy Redeemer Elementary/Middle School Astronomy Club -
Sending and Receiving Images
Using glow tubes filled with hydrogen, oxygen, neon, argon, and nitrogen, and 35 mm diffraction gratings, students observe first hand that atoms have unique spectral signatures or "bar codes". Students then compare atomic bar codes with the ones on canned goods. A discussion of how astronomers can tell what stars and planets are made of follows.
Submitted By: Sten Odenwald, Holy Redeemer Elementary/Middle School Astronomy Club -
Alka-Seltzer Rockets
Students build model rockets folding construction paper (they often like to color their rockets first) around 35mm plastic film canisters. They then take their rockets outside and experiment with different mixtures of rocket fuel (Alka-Seltzer and water) to see how high they can make their rockets fly. Students keep track of their rocket's performance in a table and later transfer the table values to a graph. This is a great activity for teaching data recording, plotting, statistics, and error analysis. (Students often quickly find out that they can get their rocket to fly higher by taking the paper off).
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 -
Balloon Rocket Activity
In this activity, the participants will design and fly simple balloon rockets.
Instructions inside:
Submitted By: Dorian Janney, Watkins Mill High School Astronomy Club
Balloon Rocket Activity.doc Size: 26Kb -
Space Exploration Activity
In this activity, the participants will observe a "new planet" using simulations of a ground-based telescope, a space-based telescope, a "fly-by" mission, an orbiter mission, and a lander mission.
Instructions inside:
Submitted By: Dorian Janney, Watkins Mill High School Astronomy Club
Space Exploration Activity.doc Size: 27Kb -
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 -
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 -
Alka-Seltzer Rockets, modified
This is a hands-on inquiry-based activity that allows students to learn about the dynamics of sending missions into space. By creating "rockets" that run off off "fuel" created by Alka-Seltzer and water in film canisters. This is a very similar activity to the one that was submitted by Lou Mayo , but with some modifications.
Instructions inside:
Submitted By: Dorian Janney, Watkins Mill High School Astronomy Club
Alka Seltzer Rocket Activity.doc Size: 6.15Mb -
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
