Astronomy Assignment
sinister670
astronomy.zipAstronomy/Additional Resources.docx
For this week's website, how about some very pretty pictures of the Earth from space? The Landsat series of satellites have been imaging the Earth since 1972, and you can look at a lot of these images at eros.usgs.gov/imagegallery/ . On February 11, 2013, Landsat 5 received the title "Longest-operating Earth observation satellite" according to the Guinness Book of World Records, outliving its three-year design life by a quarter of a century, for its 28 years 10 months (and counting) time on orbit. That same day, the newest Landsat satellite (LDCM, Landsat Data Continuity Mission) was launched. After three months of testing, it officially became known as Landsat 8 on May 30, 2013.
Also, take a look at this site about the Mars Exploration Rovers: marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/home/index.html . The rover Spirit has been declared dead after traveling 4.8 miles. Opportunity, on the other hand, is still going strong, having traveled over 26 miles. This is pretty amazing for two rovers that were designed to last for three months (it's been almost 13 years since they landed). Talk about going past warranty!
The Mars Science Laboratory rover Curiosity launched on November 26, 2011 and landed on Mars on August 6, 2012. Follow it at the mission website: mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msl/ or its Facebook page at www.facebook.com/MarsCuriosity .
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Astronomy/Assignment Instructions.docx
Assignment Instructions
Instructions: All details for completing this lab are in the weekly lesson. Download the provided Word document and carefully follow all instructions both in the lesson and in the Word document. You will enter your work in a separate file, following the file naming convention in the lesson description.
Submission: Upload your Word document, or you may also save and upload your work as a PDF file. Any appropriate sketches, diagrams, etc. may be pasted into the Word document or uploaded as a separate image file.
Rubric: Your score will be based on the following rubric. As you can see, phases V and VI constitute the majority of points for the lab. If you are having difficulty, don't leave a section blank...ask questions! You may post questions in the Lab Q&A forum (in which case your classmates and/or the instructor can respond, and the answer will benefit the whole class), or directly in a message to the instructor.
Phase I - done/not done (if not done, 1 point will be subtracted)
Phase II - 1 point
Phase III - 1 point
Phase IV - 1 point
Phase V - Research question - 1 point
Phase V - Procedure - 1 point
Phase V - Data - 1 point
Phase V - Evidence-based conclusion - 1 point
Astronomy/BEFORE YOU BEGINÿ.docx
BEFORE YOU BEGIN - This is important for all of the labs. Create a new document for your responses with the following naming convention:
Lastname_Firstname_Constellation_Lab.doc.
For example, Smith_John_Constellation_Lab.doc.
Type your responses into your blank document, being careful to include headings for the six sections of the lab (Phase I through Phase VI) and any question numbers. To submit your assignment, upload this document plus any additional documents you may have, such as screenshots of your data (or you can paste those directly into your document). All submitted labs will be automatically scanned by the anti-plagiarism Turnitin.com.
Phase I—You're using www.heavens-above.com again for this lab. Follow the instructions in questions 1 through 8, and enter your answers directly in the Word document.
Phase II—You will now use the site to answer some questions and then analyze a provided generalization based on your evidence.
Phase III—You are given some data collected from the site, and asked to come up with a conclusion based on that data (in other words, an evidence-based conclusion). Make sure that you mention the specific pieces of data that you are using for evidence.
Phase IV—In this phase, you are given a research question and asked to come up with a step-by-step method of collecting the evidence needed to answer this question. You do not need to do the whole data collection process, but you do need to explain what someone would need to do (again, further instructions are in the lab document). Use the Heavens-Above.com site, which means you shouldn't write out a procedure for answering this question using real-world observations. Write it so that someone else could follow your step-by-step procedure to successfully collect the needed data.
Phase V—Now, based on what you have done in the first four phases, you will come up with your own answerable research question that can be answered using the Heavens Above (or similar) site. Don't worry, the question does not need to be complex or sophisticated, but it does need to be answerable, by you, using this website. You will write your question, the procedure to collect the evidence (like in phase IV), collect the data (use the data table in phase III as a rough guide), and come to an evidence-based conclusion (like you did in phase III).
Phase VI—Finally, you will write a short (50-word) summary (details in the lab document). This should not be information from your textbook or other sources.
Lastly, upload your completed lab document to the assignments area (remember that your name must be in the name of the file).
Questions—Post any questions about the lab to the Lab Q&A Forum. Please include the lab number in your subject line. You can also send me a message with questions.
Additional fun—You may have noticed something interesting in Phase IV. I highly recommend watching this video: casa.colorado.edu/~dduncan/pseudoscience/Derren_Brown_Astrology.avi .
