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This is an online lesson associated with activities during Solar Week, a twice-yearly event in March and October during which classrooms are able to interact with scientists studying the Sun. This activity is scheduled to occur during Monday of... (View More) Solar Week. The lesson introduces the concept of astronomical filters and their connections to imaging different objects in space. Learners will explore perceptions of images as seen using different colors of light, construct a filter wheel, and practice investigating various astronomical images using the filter wheel. This material was designed to highlight how filters are useful to astronomers and show how a real astronomical telescope uses filters to image the Sun. Outside of Solar Week, information, activities, and resources are archived and available online at any time. (View Less)
Learners will decide on the appropriateness of items to take on a long trip to Mars and take into consideration the effects of zero gravity, limited electrical power, etc.
Learners will explore different ways of displaying visual spectra, including colored "barcode" spectra, like those produced by a diffraction grating, and line plots displaying intensity versus color, or wavelength. Students learn that a diffraction... (View More) grating acts like a prism, bending light into its component colors. The activity is part of Project Spectra, a science and engineering program for middle-high school students, focusing on how light is used to explore the Solar System. (View Less)
This is an activity about observing and mapping sunspots by direct solar observation. Learners will use a small telescope, binoculars, or a Sunspotter to create a projected image of the Sun and trace the position of any observed sunspots on a piece... (View More) of paper. Additionally, learners will mark the direction of the Sun image’s motion. This is Activity 2 of the Space Weather Forecast curriculum. (View Less)
This is an activity about measurement. Learners will label key points and features on a rectangular equal-area map and measure the distance between pairs of points in order to calculate the actual physical distance on the Sun that the point pairs... (View More) represent. This is Activity 5 of the Space Weather Forecast curriculum. (View Less)
This is an activity about coronal mass ejections. Learners will calculate the velocity and acceleration of a coronal mass ejection, or CME, based on its position in a series of images from the Large-Angle Spectrometric Coronograph (LASCO) instrument... (View More) on NASA's Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft. This is Activity 2 of a larger resource, Exploring the Sun. The NASA spacecraft missions represented by this material include SOHO, TRACE, STEREO, Hinode, and SDO. (View Less)
This is an activity about bar magnets and their invisible magnetic fields. Learners will experiment with magnets and a compass to detect and draw magnetic fields. This is Activity 1 of a larger resource, entitled Exploring the Sun. The NASA... (View More) spacecraft missions represented by this material include SOHO, TRACE, STEREO, Hinode, and SDO. (View Less)
This interactive, online module allows learners to study the history of the discovery of black holes. Learners may work independently or in small groups to complete the activity. By completing this activity students learn the history of the... (View More) discovery of black holes. This activity is a subsection of the "Is a Black Hole Really A Hole?" within the online exploration "No Escape: The Truth about Black Holes." Detailed teacher pages, identified as Teaching Tips on the title page of the activity, provide science background information, lesson plan ideas, related resources, and alignment with national education standards. (View Less)
This is an activity about assumptions and stereotypes. Learners will first sketch what they perceive an astronomer looks like. After, they will together discuss their images and research the preparation that is required to become an astronomer.... (View More) Learners will share their reports in order to better refine their previous conceptions of astronomers. (View Less)