A comprehensive course that teaches the big ideas behind Newton and Einstein’s ground-breaking work. Students will discover how to design and build reflector and refractor telescopes, investigate how gravity curves spacetime, identify meteorites, detect black holes, play with the electromagnetic spectrum, and uncover the mysterious forces that shape the incredible universe we call home.

Step 1. Click Here to download your copy of the Ultimate Science Curriculum Astronomy 3 Student Guidebook. To download the Parent/Teacher Guidebook, Click Here.

Step 2. Watch the videos that go with it below.

Lesson #1: Keplers Swinging System

Overview Kepler’s Laws of Planetary Motion explain why the planets move at the speeds they do. You’ll be making a scale model of the solar system and tracking orbital speeds.

What to Learn Keplers 1^st Law states that planetary orbits about the Sun are not circles, but rather ellipses. The Sun lies at one of the foci of the ellipse. Keplers 2^nd Law states that a line connecting the Sun and an orbiting planet will sweep out equal areas in for a given amount of time. Translation: the further away a planet is from the Sun, the slower it goes.

Materials:

100’ measuring tape
Stopwatch

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Lesson #2: Earths Magnetic Pulse

Overview: When you stare at a compass, the needle that indicates the magnetic field from the Earth appears to stand still, but we’re going to find how it fluctuates and moves by creating a super-sensitive instrument using everyday materials (for comparison, you would spend more than $100 for a scientific instrument that does the same thing).

What to Learn: Today you get to learn how to amplify tiny pulses in the Earth’s magnetic field using a laser and a couple of magnets. It’s a very cool experiment, but it does take patience to make it work right. Deep breath … are you ready?

Materials:

Index card or scrap of cardboard
2 small mirrors
2 rare earth magnets
Nylon filament (thin nylon thread works, too)
4 doughnut magnets
Laser pointer (any kind will work - even the cheap key-chain type)
Clean glass jar (pickle, jam, mayo, etc… any kind of jar that’s heavy so it won’t knock over easily)
Wooden spring-type clothespin
Hot glue gun, scissors and tape

Lesson #3: Retrograde Motion

Overview: Three planets, Mars, Mercury, and Venus, appear to move backward in the sky when tracked night after night. This motion is called “retrograde motion” and has baffled scientists for years.

What to Learn: From a top view of the solar system, the planets appear to move around the Sun in an orderly fashion. The real chaos comes in when you place yourself on one of these planets and try to watch the path that the others take while you’re orbiting the Sun. It’s predictable chaos, though, with enough math and physics under your belt (like in college). Today you’re just going to get a sneak peek at the wild world of orbital mechanics.

Materials

Pencil
Ruler

Lesson #4: Rocket Math

Overview: Launching rockets requires a lot complicated math, but it all starts with Newton’s Laws of Motion. We’re going to get a taste of the math behind the real rocket science.

What to Learn: Using math with rocket science experiments allow scientists to figure out important information about the rocket structure, flight, and performance before it ever leaves the ground.

Materials

Pencil
Paper
Rocket or ball
Measuring tape
Stopwatch

Lesson #5: Whats in the Sky?

Overview: Today you get to learn how to read an astronomical chart to find out when the Sun sets, when twilight ends, which planets are visible, when the next full moon occurs, and much more. This is an excellent way to impress your friends.

What to Learn: The patterns of stars and planets stay the same, although they appear to move across the sky nightly, and different stars and planets can be seen in different seasons.

Materials

Printout of Stargazers Almanac
Pencil
Tape and scissors (optional)
Ruler

Lesson #6: Jupiters Jolts

Overview: Jupiter not only has the biggest lightning bolts we’ve ever detected, it also shocks its moons with a charge of 3 million amps every time they pass through certain hotspots. Some of these bolts are caused by the friction of fast-moving clouds. Today you get to make your own sparks and simulate Jupiter’s turbulent storms.

What to Learn: Electrons are too small for us to see with our eyes, but there are other ways to detect something’s going on. The proton has a positive charge, and the electron has a negative charge. Like charges repel and opposite charges attract.

Materials

Foam plate
Foam cup
Wool cloth or sweater
Plastic baggie
Aluminum pie pan
Aluminum foil
Film canister or M&M container
Nail (needs to be a little longer than the film canister)
Hot glue gun or tape
Water

Lesson #7: Moons of Jupiter

Overview: On a clear night when Jupiter is up, you’ll be able to view the four moons of Jupiter (Europa, Ganymede, Io, and Callisto) and the largest moon of Saturn (Titan) with only a pair of binoculars. The question is: Which moon is which? This lab will let you in on the secret to figuring it out.

Suggested Time: 30-45 minutes

What to Learn: You get to learn how to locate a planet in the sky with a pair of binoculars, and also be able to tell which moon is which in the view.

Materials (per lab group):

Printout of corkscrew graph
Pencil
Binoculars (optional)

Lesson #8: Solar Viewers

Overview: You are going to start observing the Sun and tracking sunspots across the Sun using one of two different kinds of viewers so you can figure out how fast the Sun rotates.

What to Learn: Sunspots are dark, cool areas with highly active magnetic fields on the Sun’s surface that last from hours to months. They are dark because they aren’t as bright as the areas around them, and they extend down into the Sun as well as up into the magnetic loops.

Materials:

Tack
2 index cards (any size)
Baader film from Draco Productions - http://www.dracoproductions.net

Lesson #9: Cosmic Ray Detector

Safety Alert! You’ll be working with hot glue guns, toxic chemicals, glassware that can shatter, and finger-burning-cold dry ice. This is no time to mess around in the lab. Stay alert and work carefully to get your experiment to work.

Materials

Rubbing alcohol
Clean glass jar
Black felt
Hot glue gun
Magnet
Flashlight
Scissors
Dry ice
Goggles
Heavy gloves for handling the dry ice (adults only)

Lesson #10: Spectroscopes

Overview: Spectrometers (spectroscopes) are used in chemistry and astronomy to measure light. In astronomy, we can find out about distant stars without ever traveling to them, because we can split the incoming light from the stars into their colors (or energies) and “read” what they are made up of (what gases they are burning) and thus determine what they are made of.

What to Learn: In this experiment, you’ll make a simple cardboard spectrometer that will be able to detect all kinds of interesting things!

SPECIAL NOTE: This instrument is NOT for looking at the Sun. Do NOT look directly at the Sun. But you can point the tube at a sheet of paper that has the Sun’s reflected light on it.
Materials:
Easy Spectrometer

· Old CD
· Razor
· Index card
· Cardboard tube at least 10 inches long

Advanced Spectrometer (Calibrated)

· Cardboard box (ours is 10″ x 5″ x 5″, but anything close to this will work fine)
· Diffraction grating
· 2 razor blades (with adult help)
· Masking tape
· Ruler
· Photocopy of a ruler (or sketch a line with 1 through 10 cm markings on it, about 4cm wide)

Lesson #11: Fire & Optics

Because this activity involves fire, make sure you do this on a flame-proof surface and not your dining room table! Good choices are your driveway, cement parking lot, the concrete sidewalk, or a large piece of ceramic tile. Don’t do this experiment in your hand, or you’re in for a hot, nasty surprise.
Overview: Today you get to concentrate light, specifically the heat, from the Sun into a very small area. Normally, the sunlight would have filled up the entire area of the lens, but you’re shrinking this down to the size of the dot.

What to Learn: Magnifying lenses, telescopes, and microscopes use this idea to make objects appear different sizes by bending the light. When light passes through a different medium (from air to glass, water, a lens …) it changes speed and usually the angle at which it’s traveling. A prism splits incoming light into a rainbow because the light bends as it moves through the prism. A pair of eyeglasses will bend the light to magnify the image.

Materials:

Sunlight
Glass jar
Nail that fits in the jar
12" thread
Hair from your head
12" string
12" fishing line
12" yarn
Paperclip
Magnifying glass
Fire extinguisher
Adult help

Lesson #12: Reflector and Refractor Telescopes

Overview: Telescopes aren’t nearly as complicated as they seem. We’re going to build two different kinds of telescopes: the refractor (which has only lenses) and the reflector (which has lenses and mirrors) telescopes.

What to Learn: Your lenses are curved pieces of glass or plastic designed to bend (refract) light. A simple lens is just one piece, and a compound lens is when you stack two or more together, like inside a camera. You can arrange your lenses in different ways to get different types of magnification.

Do not use this telescope to look at the Sun! This telescope is for looking at the moon, distant terrestrial objects, and flashlights with their light intensity stepped down and passed through a wax filter.

Materials:

· Index card
· 3 clothespins
· Popsicle sticks
· 2 meter sticks
· Bright light source
· Two double-convex lenses
· Concave mirror
· Small flat mirror (like a mosaic mirror)
· Large paper clip
· Black garbage bag
· Rubber band
· Waxed paper
· Masking tape
· Hot glue gun
· Scissors

Lesson #13: Black Holes

Overview: Were ready to deal with the topic youve all been waiting for! Join me as we find out what happens to stars that wander too close, how black holes collide, how we can detect super-massive black holes in the centers of galaxies, and wrestle with the question: Whats down there, inside a black hole?

What to Learn: We’re going to take a sneak peek at the laws of physics that govern these and more in our adventure through black holes.

Materials:

· Marble
· Metal ball (like a ball bearing) or a magnetic marble
· Strong magnet
· Small bouncy ball
· Tennis ball and/or basketball
· Two balloons
· Bowl
· 10 pennies
· Saran wrap (or cup open a plastic shopping bag so it lays flat)
· Aluminum foil (youll need to wrap inflated balloons with the foil, so make sure you have plenty of foil)
· Scissors

Lesson #14: Black Hole Bucket

Overview: What comes to mind when you think about empty space? (You should be thinking: “Nothing!”) One of Einstein’s greatest ideas was that empty space is not actually nothing – it has energy and can be influenced by objects in it. It’s like the T-shirt you’re wearing. You can stretch and twist the fabric around, just like black holes do in space. What to Learn: Today, you will get introduced to the idea that gravity is the structure of spacetime itself. Massive objects curve space. How much space curves depends on how massive the object is, and how far you are from the massive object. Materials: · Two buckets with holes in the bottom · 2 bungee cords · 3 different sizes of marbles · 2.5 lb weight · 0.5 lb weight · 3 squares of stretchy fabric · Rubber band · 4 feet of string · Fishing bobber · Drinking straws · Softball · Playdough (optional)

Want More Science Activities?

These videos are samples from my online eScience Learning program. Its a complete science program for K-12. Plus, its self-guiding, so they can do it on their own.

Access over 800 more experiments! Includes our unconditional happiness money-back guarantee! Click here to learn more.

Thank You!

Thanks for the privilege as serving as your coach and guide in your science journey. May these videos bring you much excitement and curiosity in your learning adventure!

~Aurora

Supercharged Science

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