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- Hello, World!
- At Play in the Classroom for Thirty-Five Years: Recollections and Recommendations for Keeping Our Spirits—and Our Students—Soaring
- Reaching every student in your General Education class
- Classroom Stories: Teaching Astronomy to Primarily Non-science Students in Group-setting Activities, by Sandi Brenner (Bryant University)
- JWST Carina Nebula
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Category: Current Events
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Credits: NASA/STScI By Stacy Palen Supernova 1987a may be the most well-studied supernova in history. But the “corpse” had not been found! However, this may have changed according to this article from Scientific American. Here are some questions you can ask based on this article: 1) How long ago was this supernova first observed on…
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By Stacy Palen I long ago stopped keeping track of the number of moons around Saturn and Jupiter. It often feels like there is a contest going on among astronomers—who can find the most moons around “their” planet! In early October, a report hit the news of 20 new moons discovered around Saturn, many of them…
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Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls By Stacy Palen In July 2019, I received a few queries about a “black supermoon.” Since I had no idea what that was, I decided to track it down. It comes from a group of click-bait articles like this one, which are apparently taking off from a random article in Travel And…
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By Stacy Palen This set of nifty (free!) posters came through my inbox over the summer. We printed some of them to hang around the Physics Department, and the College of Science more generally. In addition to raising awareness of the contribution of women, they raise awareness of the contribution of other marginalized groups as…
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By Stacy Palen Summary: Hayabusa2 has been investigating the asteroid Ryugu. This is a sample-return mission, which has implications for Solar System formation and may cast light on the origins of life on Earth. Article: Japan (Very Carefully) Drops Elastic Explosives Onto an Asteroid 1. Consider what you know about the origin of the Solar System.…
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By Stacy Palen Don’t forget to remind your students about the Eta Aquariid Meteor Shower, coming in the beginning of May. The peak occurs around May 4-5. This is the last chance for most of us to remind Spring semester students to go out and watch a meteor shower! This meteor shower occurs when Earth passes…
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By Stacy Palen. As of this writing, InSight has just landed successfully on Mars! This mission is a little bit different from other recent missions: InSight (short for Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations) is a lander, not a rover. Because it’s in the news, this is a great opportunity for a brief in-class discussion! …
Teaching Astronomy by Doing Astronomy 