| Web site | Description |
|---|---|
| Solar eclipse | Lesson plans explain the motions of the Sun and the Moon, and what scientists learn from solar eclipses. Activities include the Edible Eclipse and the Pinhole Camera Scavenger Hunt. |
| History of Eclipses | Learn about important eclipses in history, and plan your own expedition to the next total solar eclipse. |
| Galaxies galore! | Did you know that there are billions of galaxies? We are located in the Milky Way galaxy. Learn more about galaxies and create your own galaxy mobile. |
| Make a Nanorover | In order to explore other planets, scientists use robotic vehicles that can travel over the planet's surface. Learn how to make your own balloon propelled "nanorover". |
| Two eyes are better than one | Here's an experiment to determine why two eyes are better than one. Be glad that you aren't a cyclops! |
| Test new spacecraft material | Pretend that you are an engineer who has just developed a new material for use in space, but you must first test it in a space-like environment here on earth. |
| See Inside a Closed Box! | What if you could see inside a closed box and identify the object within? Learn how with this topography activity. |
| See Ions in Action | Make pieces of paper fly through the air and stick onto a balloon. Learn about atoms and their positively and negatively charged particles. |
| Create Your Own Comet | Make an accurate model of a comet nucleus from common kitchen components. Includes a list of ingredients and a recipe to follow. |
| Kepler's Third Law | Demonstrates Kepler's Third Law by examining the motion of Mars and Earth around the sun. Applet allows user to change orbital radius of both planets. |
| Stellar Spectral Lines | Displays stellar spectral lines and allows you to determine the continuum. |
| Circular and Satellite Motion | This site contains an extensive set of notes on basic topics in physics. There are extensive illustrations and animations along with the text. Also included are self-quizzes, and shockwave quizzes and tutorials. Includes a discussion on gravitation and Kepler's laws. |
| Inverse Square Law | A practical demonstration of the Inverse Square law, and its applications in astronomy and optics. |
| Black Body Radiation | Change Temp and watch graph change according to Plank's formula. |
| Kepler Motion | Animation of Kepler motion. |
| Interference | A discussion of interference, especially the issue of resolving power. |
| Optical Telescopes | A discussion of telescopes, including aberrations. |
| Kepler's Laws with Animation and Biography | A couple of animations,plus historical biographies of Kepler and Brahe. |
| Exploring Gravity | Contains menu items devoted to topics in cosmology and gravity. Much biographical information included as well. |
| Projectile Orbits and Satellite Orbits | A Java applet for demonstrating projectile orbits. |
| Kepler Motion 2 | Simple demonstration of satellite motion. Initial velocity user-controlled. |
| University of Oregon JavaLab | Another collection of Java applets from the University of Oregon. Categorized into sections, including astronomy, mechanics, thermodynamics, and so on. |
| Space Physics Software | The program, "xspace" is a space physics educational software package. It is designed to introduce students to space physics concepts and to be used as exercises for class homework or assignments. |
| Radio Astronomy of Pulsars | The software for this exercise presents students with a radio telescope whose default operating characteristics (beam width, receiver noise, steerability) can be set by the instructor. Students can point the telescope at a source in the sky, viewing the output of the radio receiver on a graphic display that resembles a digital oscilloscope. |
| Astronomy of Asteroids | This exercise incorporates software designed to find asteroids using digital images of the sky taken at different times, along with software designed to measure the precise positions of stars on images. It also includes several digital images of asteroids taken at research observatories and documentation for both the students and the instructor. |
| The Revolution of Mars and Jupiter | The software provides a view of Jupiter at four magnifications (actual Voyager images are used), along with a highly accurate ephemeris program that draws the four Galilean satellites in their proper positions relative to the planet at any time. Students make observations of Jupiter and its satellites at regular intervals over a period of several weeks and, by graphing the separation of each moon from Jupiter versus time, they measure the period and radius of each satellite's orbit. This is sufficient information to derive the mass of Jupiter. Students use the mouse cursor to identify the moons and to measure distances. |
| Measurement of the Rotation of Mercury by the Doppler Effect | The Purpose of this lab is to illustrate the measurement of the rotation rate of a planet using the Doppler shift of a returning radar pulse. |
| Photoelectric Photonomy of the Pleiades | The purpose of this lab is to familiarize students with the technique of photoelectric filter photometry and counting statistics. To acquaint students with the use of a computer controlled telescope. To illustrate the use of equatorial coordinates for finding stars in a cluster. To introduce the use of H-R diagrams for analyzing the age and distance of clusters. |
| Spectral Classifications of Stars | This lab introduces students to digital spectra and to the process of classifying different spectra by the relative strengths of lines. To familiarize students with the sequence of spectral types. To teach how spectra are obtained. To show how the distance of a star can be estimated from its spectrum and a measurement of its apparent magnitude (spectroscopic parallax). To illustrate the need for large-aperture telescopes for the observation of faint objects. |
| The Hubble Redshift-Distance Relation | This lab illustrates how the velocities of galaxies are measured using a photon-counting spectrograph. To show how this information, along with estimates of galaxy distances (from their integrated apparent magnitudes) yields the classic Hubble redshift- distance relation. To determine the value of the Hubble parameter and the expansion age of the universe. |
| The Large Scale Structure of the Universe | The purpose of this lab is to understand how astronomers use the redshift-distance relation to map out the cosmic structure of the galaxies. To discover how the galaxies in the vicinity of the Milky Way are distributed in space. To understand how astronomers work together to collect data on many objects. |
| The Flow of Energy Out of the Sun | This lab illustrates the statistical nature of radiative transfer in stellar interiors and stellar atmospheres. To show how photons diffuse in a random- walk pattern from the core of a star . To show how spectral lines are formed by random processes of absorption and re-emission in its atmosphere. |
| Eclipsing Binary Stars | The purpose of this lab is to understand the observation problems involved in identifying eclipsing binary stars. To understand how to determine the period of a variable star from irregularly sampled measurements of its brightness. |
| The Height of Lunar Mountains | Allows the student to become familiar with the measurement of positions on digital images. To understand how the height of surface features on the moon is determined from measurements of the length of their shadows. |
This website is maintained by Dr. Chris Keating
Last updated: August 22, 2000
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