Astronomy Lecture Activites   
Developed with the assistance of a PRISM mini-grant
by Erika Grundstrom, Ellyn Baines and Dr. Douglas Gies
at Georgia State University in Atlanta, GA

Contact Information:

	Erika Grundstrom	Room 711 One Park Place
	erika [AT] chara . gsu . edu	Georgia State University
	404-651-1271	Atlanta, GA 30303

All of my stuff is in Word format as that was easiest and I could create the drawings I wanted to.

First of all, let us say a little bit about what we did. We developed some in-class activities using demonstrations we have seen or heard of and then putting actual equipment to them.
We tried this for Georgia State's Astronomy 1010: Astronomy of the Solar System class. The three activities we did were Phases of the Moon, Eclipses of the Sun and Moon, and Probability and Impacts. I personally taught one of the lecture sections and then two professors taught three other sections. We went into the other professor's sections for some of the activities.
Prior to each activity, each student was given a scantron and a pre-test. They handed these in. They did the activity. They received the exact same test as a post-test and they also were to fill out a "Post Activity Reflection" form so we could obtain student feedback.

If you use any of this stuff, please let me know what kinds of modifications you made or suggestions you have - I want to make this stuff as good and as effective as I can :)

Phases of the Moon

Basic premise: use foam spheres as the Moon and an overhead projector as the Sun to illustrate the phases of the Moon and why they happen

Equipment:

• an assistant or 2 to help answer questions depending on class size and how many other activites you've done.
• 1 or 2 or 3 overhead projectors depending on room size (you must make sure all students can get light) (overlap doesn't seem to matter much in this exercise as long as you have all projectors pointed the same general direction)
• 1 foam sphere per group (we found groups of 3 worked rather well) (our favorite size is 4 or 5 inch diameter - found at a craft store)
• 1 activity per student (or you can just make one per group, but I found they preferred one each for studying)

Time requirement: about a half-hour, maybe less, maybe more - we found once people got used to doing activities, they got faster

Pre/post test and reflection here
In-class activity: ver1 ver2 version 3
Version 1 is what we first tried with my own lecture class. It was exceedingly surprising to us that the students had so much difficulty with the first part (about the time it is on Earth) - they spent SOOOO much time on it. We made some modifications for use in another instructor's lab sections, therefore, version 2 came about. It had many of the same problems as the first version. The reason we include these is so you can see some things we did that you may want to try and how they were modified to work more smoothly.
Version 3 is the one that is the result of these iterations. It takes time, but everyone can use their own judgement on how long they are willing to spend on it.
Make sure that you go over some of the answers or hand out an answer key or something so when they study from it, they aren't floundering.

Students loved: seeing the phases themselves and the differences between cresent and gibbous
Biggest complaint: other students eclipsing the "Sun"

Eclipses of the Sun and Moon

Basic premise: use Play-doh spheres as the Earth and Moon (student-constructed to scale) and an overhead projector as the Sun to illustrate eclipses and why and when they happen

Equipment:

• an assistant or 2 to help answer questions depending on class size and how many other activites you've done.
• 1 or 2 or 3 overhead projectors depending on room size (you must make sure all students can get light) (overlap doesn't seem to matter much in this exercise as long as you have all projectors pointed the same general direction)
• 1 2 oz. jar (or half of a 4 oz. jar) of Play-doh per group (groups of 3 or 4 worked well) (we found the little jars at Target)
• 1 measuring instrument per group (2 meter lengths of string and a measuring stick work quite well BUT floppy fabric measuring tapes work even better)
• 1 activity per student

Time requirement: about a half-hour

Pre/post test and reflection: here
In-class activity: here
This activity was tested in all 4 sections of Astronomy 1010 and students seemed to find it quite interesting. There aren't any versions of this one because it didn't change much at all (just the addition of a diagram).
Perhaps it should be changed and it probably will be with the next try, but for now, this is what it is.

Students loved: playing with Play-doh and guessing sizes and seeing how wrong they were
Biggest complaint: other students eclipsing the "Sun"

Probability and Impacts

Basic premise: use playing cards to illustrate what "once-every-100-million-years" really means

Equipment:

• an assistant or 2 to help answer questions depending on class size and how many other activites you've done.
• 1 deck of cards, just aces through 10s (no face cards!!)
• 1 overhead projector or chalkboard or something for a class "master" chart
• 1 activity per student

Time requirement: about a half-hour

Pre/post test and reflection: here
In-class activity: ver1 version 2

Students loved:
Biggest complaint:

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