Monday, September 19, 2011

Quiz

Please take a short quiz here

Friday, September 16, 2011

Unit 3 notes

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Survival on another Planet

A common scenario provided by NASA is to think about ways to survive a crash on the Moon. That activity is provided here, and the answer sheet is found below it. Brainstorm your ideas as a team.


Now, pick the most habitable place of the three you compared in the previous assignment. YOU define what is habitable.


Use http://www.solarsystemscope.com to figure the current distance in AU between the Earth and this place.

Figure out how long it would take a ship that could travel 24000 miles/day to travel, one way, to your destination?


Links of Interest

Living in Space
Spacesuits
Space Hygiene
Toilets in Space
Space Food
Space Food 2




Unit 2 Review

Friday, September 9, 2011

Telescopes, Retrograde Motion, and the Moons of Jupiter

Retrograde motion




We learned about the different features of telescopes, including

universal time
local time
right ascension
declination
slewing
tracking
wide and fine viewers

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Chapter 2 Notes

The associated powerpoint slides for this unit are available.   I will run them for you on request.


Or, you can view them here.


Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Planetary Research

How are the planets alike and how are they different?
We need to consider:
  • weight
  • gravity
  • atmosphere
  • plate tectonics
  • water
  • wind
  • crust
  • moons
  • distance from sun
  • length of a year
  • length of revolution vs. length of rotation
Yikes!   Too much information.   Can we break this down?


Collaborative research

Friday, September 2, 2011

Friday, 9/2/2011

You've been working at your projects for two days.  Some of you are done, some of you are confused, some of you need to finish that project today.

That's fine.


On Monday, we'll be starting the second unit, which is gaining an understanding of how our solar system formed, how big it is, and the characteristics we notice.   It's this observation that leads to science.   Your goal will be to find out about the core and the surface of each of the planets by going here and to find out the length of one year for each of the planets by using your book.  Other questions may be answered
Do you see patterns?
How does that relate to density or the time it takes for a planet to spin on its axis?
Are there patterns in the materials that make up each of the planets, or are they random?
What about patterns in the moons?
Is water found on each planet?

I'm sure there are more questions we will think of as we do this, but this is our starting point.