For Educators
Space Sciences, Astronomy, and Physics for Grades 5-12
This film provides a great opportunity to discuss with your students a large number of science concepts that have an exciting local connection. Prompting your students to discuss the topics below from the film may help satisfy specific items in the Pennsylvania Department of Education 7th Grade Academic Standards for Science and Technology. A special educational version of the film on DVD, as well as lesson plans and fun class activity suggestions developed in association with the Senator John Heinz History Center, will be available to area K-12 schools free of charge.
Sun:
What is the source of the sun’s energy? What are sunspots? How did Samuel Langley measure the difference in surface temperature of the sun between sunspots and the rest of its surface? How does the sun’s energy reach Earth? What effect does our atmosphere have on the sun’s light before it reaches the ground?
Solar Energy:
How much energy comes from the sun? What factors influence the amount of the sun’s energy that reaches the ground? Assuming you have a device that completely converts light into electricity, how much area would be required to harness the sun’s energy to operate a mobile phone? A desktop computer? An electric car? The entire city of Pittsburgh?
Comets:
What are comets? What is the nature of their orbits? Until recently, why did people sometimes find them frightening?
Saturn:
How far away from earth is Saturn? Are the rings of Saturn solid or composed of particles? How did James Keeler prove this at the Allegheny Observatory?
Telescopes:
What is the difference between a reflecting and a refracting telescope? Why did Samuel Langley suggest to John Brashear he build a reflecting telescope?
Spectroscopy Instruments:
What are the components of light? What are the portions of light we can’t see and why? How can light coming from a star tell us what the star is made of?
Telling Time:
Without digital electronics, what are some ways you can measure time? What are the sources of error in each of these methods over a long period? What are the problems associated with relying on sundials to derive a method of measuring time over the course of a year? How did Langley use star position to tell what time it is?
