Miss Mousie Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 (edited) I'd like to design an astronomy course for DS for 10th grade next year. He'll have finished biology with Campbell C&C (mostly based on the Quarks & Quirks syllabus), and with any luck will take Chem and Physics at a college Jr. & Sr. years. He'll have finished Alg 1. I am drawn toward doing it Regentrude-style (or at least what I interpret "Regentrude-style" to mean): Make a long list of acceptable resources, decide which ones are mandatory, let DS choose what to do in what order and which "extras" to do. I'm thinking of using Arny's Exploring Astronomy text as a spine, but I haven't actually seen the book yet. It seems to have a good reputation for use in a high school course and seems to have some easily available resources/teaching aids. Possibilities: Online (youtube etc.) video lectures & documentaries TC lectures popular books (Sagan, Hawking, maybe selections from Bryson's Short History) I'm starting to get a feel for the "standard" topics, but don't know enough yet to pick 3 youtube lectures that nail one topic, KWIM? Any ideas? What about output? Would a couple research papers and maybe some short-answer questions suffice? I definitely want the math component, but it doesn't have to be primary, and I don't know that I'll need to test it beyond a few homework problems. Thanks for any assistance/ideas.... Edited February 12, 2016 by Miss Mousie Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 We used the Teaching Company lecture series Understaning the Universe with the book by the same guy. I then added in some supplemental reading, and my son did a bunch of stuff at the local observatory. It was a good course. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Mousie Posted February 12, 2016 Author Share Posted February 12, 2016 We used the Teaching Company lecture series Understaning the Universe with the book by the same guy. I then added in some supplemental reading, and my son did a bunch of stuff at the local observatory. It was a good course. So, no writing or math required? What sort of opportunities were available at the observatory? We live near-ish to Adler Planetarium, but I am SO not a night person and would have a hard time doing "star party" stuff. I also don't see much in the way of in-depth educational stuff there - more standard middle school field trip things. But I haven't called, so I could be completely wrong. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EKS Posted February 12, 2016 Share Posted February 12, 2016 So, no writing or math required? What sort of opportunities were available at the observatory? We live near-ish to Adler Planetarium, but I am SO not a night person and would have a hard time doing "star party" stuff. I also don't see much in the way of in-depth educational stuff there - more standard middle school field trip things. But I haven't called, so I could be completely wrong. Writing and (some) math were required. I had him answer the questions in the textbook which required both, and he wrote some papers. He went to star parties at the observatory and later became a member and went to their organizational meetings (it is a *very* small operation). He eventually ended up helping an elderly gentleman build a spectrometer and wrote a computer program that allowed them to use the computer to control it and gather data. It was pretty cool. I hear you about not being a night person. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Mousie Posted February 13, 2016 Author Share Posted February 13, 2016 Writing and (some) math were required. I had him answer the questions in the textbook which required both, and he wrote some papers. He went to star parties at the observatory and later became a member and went to their organizational meetings (it is a *very* small operation). He eventually ended up helping an elderly gentleman build a spectrometer and wrote a computer program that allowed them to use the computer to control it and gather data. It was pretty cool. I hear you about not being a night person. WOW! That is beyond cool! I'm so glad he had those opportunities. Thanks for the help, Kai. You are talking me down from the "must do all the things" precipice. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted February 13, 2016 Share Posted February 13, 2016 We used Starry Night as a component of my college physics class. The software is very cool, although I'm not sure what features you get at each level. We used it as part of our lab work. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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