El Fin

FAVORITE   
  During this semester in Space Science, I have had a few favorite topics and projects. My favorite project was the electromagnetic spectrum newsletter based on the WebQuest. I loved this project because I'm not quite fond of group projects, but I liked that we could easily confer with classmates to check our answers and information. The spectrum may not have been my favorite topic, but the creativity involved in this project made it my favorite. The life cycle of stars was my favorite topic, because it's fascinating that such massive objects change, are born, and die just like animals, plants, and people. The fact that this study can help us to understand how a star started is really cool, too!
LEAST FAVORITE    
     My least favorite technology that we utilized was Glogster. The project itself was fun because we got to research stars, but Glogster made the whole process frustrating and tedious. PowerPoints would definitely have made for an easier, and better organized, presentation. My least favorite project was the galaxy project, because, though I loved VoiceThread, the websites provided to us for research has varying and inconsistent information.
WHAT I WOULD CHANGE
     One thing I learned in Space Science this year is that there is a plethora of ways to present projects: PowerPoints, Glogs, VoiceThreads, Blogs, Newsletters, and posters. Obviously not everyone is going to love every single one of these methods, so I propose that you introduce the ways of presenting at the beginning of the semester, and then give students the choice of their method. Personally I feel like some of my presentations would have been more organized and less stressful if I had been able to make PowerPoints or newsletters for everything.
HARDEST TO BELIEVE
     I think that there were two topics this year that I really could not wrap my head around. Black holes were definitely impossible for me to understand, because they are invisible, "eat everything", and have massive gravity without being, well, massive. The model of a black hole where it makes a "dip" in the "sheet" that is the universe actually made me even more confused on the topic. The Big Bang was also difficult for me to understand, though I definitely believe it. Just the fact that nothing existed before the Big Bang is hard for me to grasp, though I'd love to learn more on the topic.

Thunderdell!

     

     The Return to the Moon Challenge project had us get into groups of six, then further divide into two research teams: design and site. I was on the site team, which chose three potential locations for our lunar base. The three we chose were the Peary Crater rim, Plaskett Crater rim, and Malapert Mountain on the rim of the Shackleton Crater. We decided on the Malapert Mountains because they receive near-constant sunlight, have only a two day lunar night, and are tall enough to have great radio transmission. We also had to determine a power source (solar power) and an experiment (greenhouse). The design team helped with these aspects, and they also designed a model of the base and determined the necessary resources and recycling that the team would need. Finally, we had to think of how our base could expand in the future and become self-sufficient. 

     I really liked the large teams for this project. Having three people per team made the research easier, and when someone on either team couldn't think of something to do, they could always help the other team. We definitely had sufficient time for this project, which allowed us to build fantastic models and really understand the factors involved in building a lunar base.

     I didn't like the research portion of this project, because it was difficult to sort out factual and speculative information on possible lunar bases. For example, some things were not fully explained in the research (how to convert water ice to rocket fuel) so we had trouble fully understanding them. 

     To make this project better, maybe Mrs. Gratton could add links to the resources drive to pages with credible information about the moon, so that we would fully understand the environment that the team would be going into. I think this would make it much easier to begin research if we had background information to go from!

Electromagnetic Spectrum!

    Just last week we finished creating newsletters or brochures on the Electromagnetic Spectrum, or EM Spectrum. The EM Spectrum includes the range of frequencies that characterize light. It is made up of seven types of radiation: Radio waves, Microwaves, Infrared waves, Visible light, Ultraviolet light, X Rays, and Gamma rays (from left to right). We are only able to see the colors that make up visible light, but astronomers have found ways to see objects on Earth and in space in different wavelengths!




Some other uses of the EM Spectrum:

• Astronomers use cameras that can see infrared wavelengths to see thermal energy being emitted..This can be used when looking at outer space, because they can look at stars or constellations with this technology to see the temperature of stars or dust. 
• Astronomers can look into space with detectors that are sensitive to ultraviolet light to detect new star formation. 
• They have also used radio wave emissions that come from space to help discover the molecular structure and environments of objects they look at in space. 
• Astronomers use X Rays to view objects in space, where colors represent how intense the X Ray emissions are. 

   The types of radiation to the right of visible light (Ultraviolet, X Ray, Gamma ray) have very short wavelengths. The wavelength of a Gamma ray can be as short as the nuclei of an atom. Radiation to the left of visible light (Infrared, Microwaves, Radio waves) have very long wavelengths, with the longest being Radio waves, which can be longer than a football field. Each type of wavelength has a specific function. For example, Radio waves are great for carrying information, while Gamma rays can kill cancerous cells. 

   I really liked that we had to organize our information into a newsletter. It forced us to look over our answers to the worksheet, and organize them into bigger "articles". The newsletter is also a very easy-to-follow study guide. Having us put our information into two different formats really made sure that we knew our stuff. Also, the website for the webquest was really well set up and easy to follow! I liked that we have to draw our own EM spectrum. It really helped to solidify the information.

   What I didn't like about this project was how rushed it was. Granted, it could have been because I missed a day of working on it, but I still felt as if another day to format and polish my newsletter would have been awesome. I also feel like some of the questions were vague, such as the one where we had to make a table. It really sounded like we were supposed to use the types of radiation in the table, while in fact it was the colors of visible light that we needed. 

   To make this project better, I would clarify the questions, and maybe put a minimum number of sentences for some of the questions that demanded longer answers (The summary, for example). I mentioned that this project felt a little rushed, and maybe to help with that problem (without giving another day to work on it), there could be topic sentences under each research website on the webquest site. This could save so much time that was wasted going back and forth between the four sites when we forget which had what information. 

El Segundo

            Recently in Space Science we completed a project on a star that was assigned to us. Sarah and I had the Sun, which is a main sequence star. Main sequence stars are middle-aged, and use nuclear fusion in their cores to fuse Hydrogen to Helium, creating the pressure necessary to maintain the star. Stars spend 90% of their lives as main sequence stars. Main Sequence stars start as nebulae, clouds of dust and gas, and gradually contract to become protostars. The protostar also contracts and turns into the main sequence star, like the sun. Someday in billions of years, the Sun will run out of its fuel and expand into a red giant. Red giants are large, cool, bright stars. 

            We also learned that a star's mass can help determine the future of the star. For example, a massive red giant will most likely end up as a black hole, while a large red giant will probably turn into a white dwarf or neutron star. In addition to learning more about our star type, we also learned about certain ways to classify stars: the Hertz-Russell Diagram for the luminosity and temperature of a star, and the Star-gas-Star cycle to categorize stars by the stage of gas recycling they are in. We put our information onto a Glog, an online poster, and presented them to the class. 

What Did I Enjoy About This Project?

My favorite part of this project was definitely learning how different stars are classified in the Star-Gas-Star cycle and Hertz-Russell diagram. We already knew a lot about stellar evolution, so learning about a way to classify all stars by certain things such as temperature and luminosity was really interesting. I also loved getting to pick our own groups!

What Didn't I Enjoy?

My least favorite part of the project was the fact that I was assigned a relatively "boring" star. The Sun is a star that everyone has learned about before, so I didn't have much new or cool information about it to present.  I really strongly didn't enjoy Glogster, mainly because anything slow bothers me, but also because we had to save so frequently in order to save our Glog. Overall, I didn't think it was a very user-friendly site. 

What Would I Change?

To make this project better, I would probably consider changing the examples for each type of star, perhaps to a certain star that could be further researched for its place in a constellation or its neighboring stars. Also, because every group had to research the HR diagram, the Star-gas-Star cycle, and the Light Year, there was a LOT of repetitive information in the presentations and many redundancies in the handouts. 

El Primero

A description of the author, in three parts. 

           Part Uno: Who Am I? A sophomore, a saxophone teacher, a black belt, a karate teacher, a student council treasurer. I am a reader, a lover of great, if obscure, music, and (hopefully) a future psychologist.

           Part Dos: I chose to take Honors Space Science because, honestly, the only open classes I've taken in High School have been Gym and Health. From my experience in such classes...well...there isn't much directed work going on. Honors classes are always more challenging and focused, which are perfect conditions for learning in my opinion. (Plus the teachers tend to be great!).

          Part Tres: In Space Science Honors, I hope to learn more about our universe, especially more about the stars and the constellations they are found in. Though I've learned about the moon in school before, I would love to know more about the actual surface of the moon and how it was formed. The planets of our solar system are what mainly interests me about astronomy, so I also hope to possibly do a project on one of the planets!


(Image courtesy of http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/philosoraptor)