I was thinking about responding to Vickie's comments about teaching astronomy, but didn't. Now that she has offered clarification, I would like to make some comments. If you like astronomy pictures, don't miss the five-planets picture described at the end.
The bulk of my astronomy course content is what Vicki describes as her content. However, I believe science should not be taught without labs. This is admittedly very difficult in astronomy, but I manage to pull it off. I just finished teaching a semester-length course that began in January. I only had 16 students, so the small class size helped considerably. It is a 4 hour class, supposedly consisting of three lecture credits and one lab credit.
We schedule 50-minute sessions four times a week during the afternoon with the expectation that one of the sessions is a lab session. Which day is lab gets decided by weather and/or what we want to do. If we can get out at night then the night experience substitutes for one day period. If I need a daytime outside activity (such as sunspots, doing parallax with a transit, building a scale solar system, etc.) we do it whichever day promises the best weather. If weather turns bad we just do lecture instead and try the lab a different day.
I have about 20 different lab things we can do, and my goal is to complete 12 of them. Some are day things, some night, most are outside but a few are inside. By carefully watching weather forecasts and communicating with the class via e-mail we had a pretty good term. We completed 12 lab experiences. One was inside, six were outside at night, five were outside during the day. Even though students must be flexible, and change plans with very little notice, my lab attendance was nearly 100%.
* * * Planet Party * * *
This was a fantastic spring for viewing planets out through Saturn. We knew we wanted to get out during the end of April to see the five planets visible just after sundown. We planned a chili supper in a field where we had a good westward view. I made the chili and the students made desserts and brought soft drinks. We set aside four separate nights that might work, and we agreed to do the first night that promised clear sky. That meant we had to be ready to roll on just a couple hours notice. We also knew that Ohio might be cloudy the whole time. The second scheduled night (April 25) worked beyond belief. We began eating chili just before sundown (8:26). While eating dessert we had a contest to see who would be first to spot Venus, then Jupiter, then Sirius, etc. At 9:17 we were treated to a magnitude -6 Iridium flare that appeared at the right place exactly on time.
* * * Pictures * * *
I have a nice picture of the planets taken with a 3.3 mega pixel digital camera. It appears at this URL...
The file: five.planets.jpg is pretty much straight from the camera. If you view it on screen with PhotoEditor or similar software you will probably want to increase gamma into the range of 1.8 to 2.5. It prints beautifully on an Epson photo printer, although you have to reduce yellow with some papers and reduce magenta with other papers.
The file: five.planets.57.pdf creates a 5x7 print with the date, title, and my name. At the final exam I gave each class member a print of this picture, suitable for framing, as a class souvenir.
The file: planets.guide.pdf is a drawing to help identify objects in the picture. For example, Pleiades is visible just right of Venus, and most of Orion is visible on the left side of the photo.
The other JPG photos at this URL show our chili supper.
* * * Summary * * *
I believe students learned a lot about how stars work, etc. But the lab experiences are what they will remember the most. They will probably remember the chili supper with the five planets for the rest of their lives.
Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D. Phone/voice-mail: 419-358-3270
Professor of Chemistry & Physics FAX: 419-358-3323
Chairman, Science Department E-Mail edmiston@bluffton.edu
Bluffton College
280 West College Avenue
Bluffton, OH 45817