Seeking Coteachers for an Awesome Astrophysics Class
I'm currently in the planning stages for a fantastic HSSP class on astronomy and astrophysics. (HSSP is an eight-week version of Splash, where students can take courses in a huge variety of topics that go into more depth than a few-hour-long seminar.) I'm currently coteaching it with dfarhi (aka Meta to the Mathcamp folks), but we're not sure if we want to do it because preparing it will take some time.
The idea is that the students will themselves come up with the kind of data that they'd like to collect, and we'll provide them with the resulting data for various stellar objects. So initially they'll think of parallax (perhaps with some poking) and from that they can figure out some distances to close stars, but then it's up to them to find patterns in the data and think of other methods. The idea is that, on their own, they should come up with the H-R diagram, the idea of standard candles, and so forth, expanding out further and further the radius about which they can get information. (We'll at some point talk about light and give them spectra, but it's up to them to figure out that they're redshifted!) Meanwhile, we'll take some time each class to talk about the phenomena they're witnessing, telling them about related phenomena and expanding their understanding of the physics behind what they're discovering. It's an amazing way to get introduced to astronomy, because it all makes sense together and you are making the discoveries yourself. It's also crazy and insane, and will take a lot of time to prepare.
Thus: we are looking for another coteacher! It's a chance to be part of an awesome class and really help out a lot of kids. It would involve helping us to gather the data on the stars and prepare cards with the information for students, as well as planning the class and (optionally, but encouraged) giving about a third of the lectures. If you want to help make this happen, or you know someone else who's into astronomy and would want to help make this happen, let us know. We're not sure if we want to do it if it's just the two of us, because we're worried about the work, but with a third it shouldn't be bad at all.
The classes themselves take place Saturdays on the MIT campus, time negotiable. It's gonna be great. :)
The idea is that the students will themselves come up with the kind of data that they'd like to collect, and we'll provide them with the resulting data for various stellar objects. So initially they'll think of parallax (perhaps with some poking) and from that they can figure out some distances to close stars, but then it's up to them to find patterns in the data and think of other methods. The idea is that, on their own, they should come up with the H-R diagram, the idea of standard candles, and so forth, expanding out further and further the radius about which they can get information. (We'll at some point talk about light and give them spectra, but it's up to them to figure out that they're redshifted!) Meanwhile, we'll take some time each class to talk about the phenomena they're witnessing, telling them about related phenomena and expanding their understanding of the physics behind what they're discovering. It's an amazing way to get introduced to astronomy, because it all makes sense together and you are making the discoveries yourself. It's also crazy and insane, and will take a lot of time to prepare.
Thus: we are looking for another coteacher! It's a chance to be part of an awesome class and really help out a lot of kids. It would involve helping us to gather the data on the stars and prepare cards with the information for students, as well as planning the class and (optionally, but encouraged) giving about a third of the lectures. If you want to help make this happen, or you know someone else who's into astronomy and would want to help make this happen, let us know. We're not sure if we want to do it if it's just the two of us, because we're worried about the work, but with a third it shouldn't be bad at all.
The classes themselves take place Saturdays on the MIT campus, time negotiable. It's gonna be great. :)