UNL Astronomy Education

Astronomy Demonstration Videos

2011-11-20T12:24:47-06:00

Check out our new series of Astronomy Demonstration Videos entitled AU available under the Resources tab here. The videos are 2 to 3 minutes long and consist of a demonstration commonly appropriate for the introductory astronomy classroom prefaced with enough explanation to provide the proper context. We created these videos with distance education courses in mind where typical students go the entire semester without seeing a demonstration, but they are also useful for instructors with limited equipment or limited time to set equipment up. The videos can be run online or downloaded to a local computer. They are freely available for any non-profit educational use.

Public Talk on Instructional Technology on November 9th

2011-10-27T14:56:15-06:00

Perry Samson of the University of Michigan will be giving a public talk at UNL on Wednesday, November 9th at 4:00 pm in the city campus student union auditorium. The presentation is entitled Deliberate Engagement of Laptops in Large Lecture and will focus on a new classroom technique using instructional technology. The presentation is free and open to the public. A flyer promoting the event is available here.

ExoPlanets Abound! -- Public Talk on October 21st

2011-10-17T16:20:08-06:00

Jason Wright of Penn State University will be giving a public talk at UNL on Friday, October 21st at 7:30 pm. The presentation is entitled Exoplanets Abound! and will be given in the city campus student union auditorium. The presentation is free and open to the public. A flyer promoting the event is available here.

Registration Open for Fall Astronomy Education Workshop

2011-08-12T14:15:09-06:00

The 14th annual UNL Astronomy Education Workshop will be held on Saturday, October 22, 2011. We will meet in Jorgensen Hall from 8:30 am until 4:00 pm. This will be a joint meeting with the Nebraska chapter of the American Association of Physics Teachers and the chapter's business meeting will take place at 4:00 pm. Activities will include:

Keynote address by extrasolar planet astronomer Jason Wright of Penn State
Physics of the Junk Drawer session led by the Science House's Scott Ragan
Breakout Sessions on Clickers, Video Analysis, Astronomy Software, Spectra Demonstrations, Pearson's Mastering Physics, and much more ...

All high school and college instructors of either astronomy or physics are invited to participate free of charge. Continental breakfast, lunch, and a variety of teaching materials will be provided. Please register by contacting:

Heather Hulinsky
hhulinsky2@unl.edu
402-472-6348

UATP Public Talk

2011-06-28T13:23:04-06:00

A talk will be given by Dr. Duncan Brown of Syracuse University to kick off the Using Astronomy to Teach Physics Workshop. The talk is entitled "The New Astronomy of LIGO" and will be given in UNL's City Campus Student Union Auditorium on Wednesday, July 27 at 7:30 pm. LIGO is an instrument that is expected to make the first detection of gravitational waves — waves produced in the collision of black holes. The talk is appropriate for general audiences and is open to the public free of charge. A flyer promoting the event is available here.

UATP Plenary Speakers

2011-06-27T16:01:06-06:00

The Using Astronomy to Teach Physics Workshop will be held on the UNL campus July 27-30. An impressive list of plenary speakers has recently been announced. The speakers, their institutions, and their topics include:

Joseph Amato, Colgate (Teaching Physics with Astronomy)
Roger Blandford, Stanford (Keynote Address)
Duncan Brown, Syracuse (LIGO)
Doug Caldwell, NASA (Kepler ExtraSolar Planets)
David Helfand, Columbia (Chandra)
Kara Hoffman, Maryland (IceCube)
Ed Prather, Arizona (Pedagogical Strategies)
Barbara Ryden, Ohio State (Observational Cosmology)
Greg Snow, UNL (Pierre Auger Observatory)

More information can be found here.

Kepler ExtraSolar Planet Visualization

2011-03-01T13:09:36-06:00

The UNL Astronomy Education Group was commissioned by the Kepler Space Probe EPO Group to develop an extrasolar planet visualization tool. The visualization is now used on the Kepler web site to display the physical characteristics of all newly discovered extrasolar planets. As an example, look at the page for Kepler-5b.

Using Astronomy to Teach Physics Workshop

2011-02-26T13:31:15-06:00

UNL will be hosting a workshop entitled UATP (Using Astronomy to Teach Physics) July 27 - 30 to precede the AAPT National Meeting held in Omaha. A complete description can be found here. This workshop is endorsed by both the APS and the AAPT.

Fall Astronomy Education Workshop Scheduled

2011-02-26T13:24:41-06:00

The next UNL Astronomy Education Workshop will be held Saturday, October 22, 2011. This will be a joint meeting with the N-AAPT. Guests will include Scott Ragan, Assistant Director of North Carolina State University's The Science House and Jason Wright (home page), extrasolar planet astronomer from Penn State. Please check back for more details.

Hawk at Student Observatory

2011-02-26T13:12:49-06:00

Last week brought a new first time visitor to the UNL Student Observatory (a first-year red-tailed hawk according to UNL biologists). The visitor's size, proximity to the observatory door, and total disinterest in humans no matter how close they got were all quite surprising.

Click the image to see a larger version.

New Sidereal and Solar Time Simulator

2010-10-18T15:41:46-06:00

A Sidereal and Solar Time Simulator has been added to the site. It illustrates a solar clock, a sidereal clock, the Sun, and an observer on Earth. One can advance time by a variety of different increments and see the effects on both clocks and the observer. Concepts that can be demonstrated include:

the 4 minute difference between solar and sidereal days
the ~366 sidereal days and ~365 solar days in a year
alignment with the sun for solar time, alignment with the stars for sidereal time
that sidereal time is equal to the RA of an object on the meridian -- "if it is noon on the summer solstice, what is the sidereal time?"

Agenda for Astronomy Education Workshop

2010-09-10T19:23:27-06:00

The 13th Astronomy Education Workshop is scheduled for Saturday, October 9, 2010. Our guest speaker will be Dr. Travis Rector of the University of Alaska. He will tell us about his curriculum development on labs where students learn science by actually doing science and have participants experience this first hand with a lab on searching for novae in the Andromeda Galaxy. We will also learn about some of the new planets discovered by the Kepler mission and how these are being communicated to the public. The workshop agenda is available here.

Numerous educational materials, continental breakfast and lunch are provided free of charge. High school instructors, college instructors and undergraduates interested in careers in science education should register with Shannon Parry by phone at 402-472-9312 or by email at sparry3@unl.edu.

Upcoming Workshops

2010-07-08T17:01:00.000-05:00

Workshops will be held at two conferences during the next month:

1. Kevin Lee and Ed Prather will be teaching a day long workshop at the AAPT National Meeting in Portland, Oregon on July 18. The workshop is entitled "Teaching Astronomy Effectively with Technology". Abstract:

Educational research has clearly defined the characteristics of the optimal introductory astronomy classroom – one where students are actively engaged in the learning process and frequently receiving timely feedback on their learning progress. This CAE/CATS Tier 2 workshop will explore a variety of technologies that enable instructors to engage students and efficiently provide feedback. Instructors will be trained and provided with curriculum materials from multiple NSF grants on computer simulations, computerized databases of Think-Pair-Share questions, and a library of both animated and pencil-paper ranking and sorting tasks. All materials will be disseminated through the web (http://astro.unl.edu) before the workshop and attendees will bring their own laptops with the software already installed.

See the AAPT web site for more information.

2. The CATS team will be presenting a series of 7 workshops at the Cosmos 2010 Conference in Boulder. Those that include local presenters are:

Engaging Students with Simulations in the Classroom – Kevin Lee (U. of Nebraska) and Rica French (Mira Costa Coll.)
Engaging Students with ClassAction – Rica French (Mira Costa Coll.) and Kevin Lee (U. of Nebraska)
Engaging Students with Pencil-and-Paper and Computer-Delivered Ranking Tasks: Quantitative Reasoning Activities that Increase Learning – Ed Prather (U. of Arizona) and Kevin Lee (U. of Nebraska)

See the Cosmos web site for more information.

Astronomy Education Workshop

2010-07-08T17:00:00.000-05:00

The 13th Astronomy Education Workshop is scheduled for Saturday, October 9, 2010. Our guest speaker will be Dr. Travis Rector of the University of Alaska. Please check back for more information as the date approaches.

ClassAction v2

2010-04-06T14:29:00.004-05:00

A major focus of our efforts recently has been improving ClassAction. Not only have we made many new questions (there are nearly 450), we have also created a completely new ‘browser’ for ClassAction: ClassAction v2. Although this new browser is still considered beta it is sufficiently well developed that we want to encourage people to try it. Here are some of the things it lets you do:

You can now create custom modules with questions and resources that you select. Instructions are on the v2 page.
You can download your custom modules in a zip file and run them from your laptop or flash drive during class (no internet dependence).
You can resize the browser window and the question will get bigger or smaller as needed.
You can use search to find the questions you want. (In the v2 browser, click the logo in the upper right and select ‘Search’ from the menu.)
You now have access to all questions and resources in a single package.
You can navigate between modules and questions in much the same way as you would in a web browser. You can navigate to the next or previous question in a module with a single click.
Large modules are handled more efficiently (reduced CPU load).

Shawn Langan will be presenting this new version of ClassAction at the Mid-American Regional Astrophysics Conference on April 9, 2010.

Recent Changes

2010-04-06T14:21:00.002-05:00

(Here's a little list of some of the things we have been working on since last fall. We're saving the biggest development for the next post.)

Several times a year we invite guest speakers to UNL to discuss topics relevant to astronomy educators. These talks are now available online. If you aren't using ClassAction (or other active engagement techniques) in your classroom then start by watching Dr. Ed Prather's talk.

We have begun creating training videos to show instructors how to use our materials in their classrooms.

The Astronomy Interactives project has released several new ranking tasks.

The Lunar Phases Simulator has been translated into Dutch and Greek. This is our first internationalized simulator.

In addition to many new ClassAction questions, we've also introduced several new simulators. Three of our favorites are the Gravity Calculator, the Lunar Phase Quizzer, and the Galactic Redshift Simulator (thanks to Dr. Travis Rector at the University of Alaska Anchorage for the idea for this simulator).

Ranking Tasks Workshop at February AAPT/APS Meeting

2009-12-31T16:31:00.002-06:00

On February 14th Kevin Lee and Ed Prather will give a half day workshop on ranking tasks at the AAPT/APS (American Association of Physics Teachers / American Physical Society) joint meeting in Washington DC. For more details visit the AAPT Workshops page.

Teaching Astronomy with Technology Workshop at AAS

2009-12-31T16:30:00.001-06:00

On January 3rd Kevin Lee, Ed Prather and Rica French will be giving a day long workshop on teaching astronomy with technology at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington DC.

Ruckman Lecture and the Astronomy Education Workshop

2009-09-28T17:59:00.003-05:00

Two events are coming up this week at UNL:

Ruckman Lecture:
Stars Above, Earth Below: Astronomy in the National Parks
by Dr. Tyler Nordgren (University of Redlands)
Friday, October 2, 7:30pm
City Union Auditorium
promotional flyer (pdf)

Astronomy Education Workshop
Saturday, October 3, 9:00am to 3:30pm
Avery 19, UNL City Campus
workshop agenda (pdf)

We are pleased to welcome Tyler Nordgren (University of Redlands) to present this year's Ruckman Lecture on the subject of astronomy and the national parks. The dark skies of the national parks provide an opportunity to truly appreciate the night sky, and the geological formations at the parks demonstrate processes that occur on other planets. The student observatory will be open to visitors after the talk.

Dr. Nordgren will also take part in the next day's Astronomy Education Workshop – workshop agenda (pdf). If you would like to attend this workshop, please RSVP by emailing sparry3@unl.edu or calling 472-9312.

Colloquium on Learner-Centered Teaching

2009-09-22T17:47:00.002-05:00

When: Friday, September 25, 4-5pm
Where: Nebraska Union Auditorium

Ed Prather (University of Arizona) will be talking this Friday about active engagement strategies and how they can improve students' understanding beyond what is achieved by traditional instructional methods. From questioning in the classroom to small group collaborative activities, many forms of interactive teaching will be modeled and discussed.

Dr Prather is the executive director of the Center for Astronomy Education, which develops and conducts research on the effectiveness of learner-centered instructional materials and methods. Complete details can be found on the promotional flyer (pdf).

Astronomy Education Workshop at UNL

2009-08-21T17:07:00.000-05:00

The 12th Astronomy Education Workshop will be held Saturday, October 3, 2009, 9:00am through 3:30pm. This is a joint meeting with the Nebraska chapter of the AAPT (the N-AAPT business meeting will occur at 3:30).

This workshop will feature Tyler Nordgren (University of Redlands), who will speak about everyday applications of astronomy, and Dale Stille (University of Iowa), who will give a presentation of astronomy related physics demos. Additional information can be found on the workshop homepage.

If you would like to attend this workshop, please RSVP by emailing sparry3@unl.edu or calling 472-9312.

Fall 2009 Observatory Public Nights Schedule

2009-08-21T16:52:00.001-05:00

There will be three public nights at Behlen Observatory and four at the Student Observatory during the Fall 2009 semester.

Date	Time	Location
Friday, September 18	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Student Observatory
Friday, September 25	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Behlen Observatory
Friday, October 2	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Student Observatory*
Friday, October 23	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Behlen Observatory
Friday, October 30	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Student Observatory
Friday, November 13	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Student Observatory
Friday, November 20	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Behlen Observatory

*There will also be a public lecture before the October 2 observatory open house.

Directions to Behlen Observatory
UNL Observatories Home

Planetary Orbit Simulator Featured in Project Tuva

2009-07-15T21:11:00.000-05:00

(First time visitors to our site may wish to start by browsing our list of animations.)

Microsoft Research has just released a series of filmed lectures by Richard Feynman on the nature of physical laws. The Silverlight based player allows one to follow the lectures with a transcript, and also presents links to resources at relevant times. The first lecture ("Law of Gravitation") features NAAP's Planetary Orbit Simulator after Feynman discusses Kepler's laws and Newton's interpretation of them.

Microsoft Research is the same group that created WorldWide Telescope, a desktop planetarium program that allows one to navigate and take tours of a multitude of astronomical images.

Center for Astronomy Education Workshop

2009-07-09T08:43:00.002-05:00

Kevin Lee will be presenting ClassAction and NAAP materials at the Center for Astronomy Education's Maui Workshop July 11-12. Other special presenters at this workshop will be Larry Marschall (Gettysburg College) and Travis Rector (Univ. of Alaska). More information can be found on the CAE's workshop homepage.

Earth Sized Planet Discovered

2009-04-22T15:19:00.001-05:00

Astronomers have just announced (New York Times article) the discovery of a fourth planet orbiting the nearby star Gliese 581. This planet is also the most earth-like, in terms of mass, of the more than 300 extrasolar planets yet discovered.

This newly discovered planet is much too close to its parent star to be conducive to life. However, the outermost planet in the Gliese 581 system is just outside (or possibly just within) the boundary of the habitable zone, which is defined as the region around a star where liquid water might exist on the surface.

The recently developed Stellar Habitability Zone simulator can be used to model this system as well as several others. This simulator is part of an extrasolar biology NAAP module currently under development.

Astronomy Camp 2009

2009-04-13T15:43:00.001-05:00

UNL will be hosting an astronomy camp for high school students July 12-18. The cost is $100 for in-state students and $150 for out-of-state students (need-based scholarships are available). Interested students should submit applications by May 15. The application form is available in pdf or doc format.

Extrasolar Planets Talk at Nebraska Academy of Sciences

2009-04-13T15:19:00.002-05:00

Kevin Lee will be giving the keynote address to the physics section at the Nebraska Academy of Sciences meeting on Friday, April 17 at 1 pm in the Nebraska Wesleyan Planetarium. The talk, entitled Peer Instruction, Computer Simulations, & ExtraSolar Planets will summarize current knowledge of extrasolar planets and will feature educational tools available to introduce the subject to students.

Dr. Terry Oswalt to Visit UNL

2009-01-29T17:44:00.001-06:00

Dr. Terry Oswalt, a well-known expert on white dwarf stars, will be visiting UNL next week. While here he will give three talks (click on the titles for more details):

Digging in the Stellar Graveyard: How Astronomers Measure the Age of the Universe
Physics Department Colloquium, Thursday, February 5, 4:00 pm, Brace 211
Chicken Little Was Right, the Sky IS Falling!
General Public Talk, Thursday, February 5, 7:30 pm, Union Auditorium, UNL City Campus
Searching for Life in the Universe: Where is Everyone?

Behlen Open House, Friday, February 6, 8:00 pm, Behlen Observatory, Mead, NE — directions to Behlen Observatory

Workshop at Chicago AAPT Meeting

2009-01-29T17:42:00.001-06:00

Kevin Lee and Chris Siedell will be teaching a daylong workshop entitled "Teaching Astronomy with Technology" at the upcoming AAPT Winter National Meeting in Chicago. This workshop will focus on using simulations, think-pair-share questions, and technology in the classroom. The workshop will be held Friday, February 13, 8 to 5. Visit the AAPT site for more details.

Winter/Spring 2009 Observatory Public Nights

2009-01-22T08:48:00.001-06:00

There will be three public nights at Behlen Observatory and four at the Student Observatory during the coming semester.

Date	Time	Location
Friday, January 23	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Student Observatory
Friday, February 6	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Behlen Observatory
Friday, February 13	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Student Observatory
Friday, March 6	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Behlen Observatory
Friday, March 27	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Student Observatory
Friday, April 3	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Behlen Observatory
Friday, April 24	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Student Observatory

Directions to Behlen Observatory
UNL Observatories Home

Site Redesign

2009-01-10T16:54:00.001-06:00

With the new year comes a new website design. If you experience any problems please let us know (email: astro@unl.edu) and we will try to fix things as quickly as possible.

Workshop at AAS Long Beach Meeting

2008-12-31T15:26:00.005-06:00

Kevin Lee and Doug Duncan (University of Colorado) will be teaching a workshop at the American Astronomical Society meeting on Sunday, January 4th, 2-5pm. The workshop, Active Questioning in the Classroom, will focus on increasing student engagement through the use of in-class questions and other resources. Follow the link to the AAS site above for more information.

Please note: workshop attendees are strongly encouraged to bring their laptops, as ClassAction questions and resources will be used extensively.

Fall 2008 Public Nights Schedule

2008-08-15T12:23:00.003-05:00

There will be three public nights at Behlen Observatory and four at the Student Observatory during the Fall 2008 semester.

Date	Time	Location
Friday, September 5	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Behlen Observatory
Friday, September 12	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Student Observatory
Friday, October 3	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Student Observatory
Friday, October 10	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Behlen Observatory
Friday, November 7	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Behlen Observatory
Friday, November 14	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Student Observatory
Friday, December 5	7:30 pm to 10:00 pm	Student Observatory

Directions to Behlen Observatory
UNL Observatories Home

Updated Planetary Orbit Simulator

2008-08-15T12:19:00.002-05:00

After showing the Planetary Orbit Simulator at the AAPT workshop in Edmonton we realized that the orbit scaling method could be made more intuitive. Here is the new version with improved scaling:

Updated Planetary Orbit Simulator

Notice that instead of staying at a fixed size on the screen the orbit temporarily expands or contracts as the semimajor axis length changes. Check out the old version for comparison.

Other changes to note: there's now a scale bar in the Visualization panel, grid lines are now optional, and there are more options in the Newtonian Features panel.

Fall Astronomy Education Workshop

2008-06-30T15:30:00.001-05:00

The 11^th UNL Astronomy Education Workshop will be held on Saturday, October 11, 2008. Our featured speaker will be Dr. Pamela Gay of Southern Illinois University. Pamela is a well-known variable star astronomer and is very active in the American Association of Variable Star Observers. She also has a long history of communicating astronomy to the public through podcasts (see http://www.astronomycast.com). Registration will commence in late August.

Workshop at AAPT Summer Meeting

2008-06-30T15:22:00.001-05:00

Kevin Lee with Todd Young (WSC) and Dave Kreigler (UNO) will once again be offering a day-long workshop at the national AAPT meeting in Edmonton. The workshop is entitled ?Teaching Astronomy with Technology? and is held on Sunday, July 20. It will strongly focus on computer simulation and peer instruction usage in the classroom and touch lightly on computerized ranking tasks and how technology can aid preclass preparedness.

Peer Instruction Materials for Stellar Evolution

2008-06-30T15:00:00.005-05:00

The latest module to debut on the ClassAction web site focuses on stellar evolution. There are presently 16 questions and this module is likely to grow over time. It does a particularly thorough job of exploring student understanding of the different stages of the sun?s future evolutionary track and the source of fusion energy at each stage. A poster paper on the Stellar Evolution module will be presented at the AAPT meeting in Edmonton on July 22. Visit the Stellar Evolution Module page.