Lesson Plans
My curriculum unit carries out the integration of space science throughout the physics course; therefore the lesson plans will not look like a traditional unit or daily lesson plan. The lesson plan will include how and what will be integrated into my traditional daily lessons over the course. The first day of class will begin with the video by Charles and Ray Eames, "The Powers of Ten." The video is a powerful view of the Universe through forty powers of ten from the size of a proton to the size of many galaxies. The first unit in most physics courses is on measurement precision, understanding significant figures and accuracy and "The Powers of Ten" video is a great method to introduce space and measurements of very small, large and distance objects. I will also include in measurement and unit conversion lesson the new units of astronomical unit (AU), Light year and parsec (pc).
Problem in space science will be included within the appropriate unit lesson to supplement and encourage discussion on space. The following are example of problems related to space science and the units were they will be added. More problems will be included in the appendix
Unit: Constant velocity motion
If the Moon revolves around the Earth on the average of 27.32 days and has an average distance from the center of the Earth of 3.84 x 10 5km, what is the Moon's average speed in m/s and mph?
Unit: Newton's Law of Universal Gravity
Suppose that the Earth were moved to a distance of 3.0 AU from the Sun. How much stronger or weaker would the Sun's gravitational pull be on the Earth? Explain.
Unit: Circular Motion
To launch a satellite in a circular orbit 1000 km above the surface of the Earth, what orbital speed must be imparted to the satellite?
A satellite is said to be in a "geosynchronous" orbit if it appears always to remain over the exact same spot on Earth. What is the period of this orbit? At what distance from the center of the Earth must such a satellite be place into orbit? Explain why the orbit must be in the plane of the Earth's equator.
Unit Doppler Effect
You are given a traffic ticket for going through a red light (wavelength 700nm). You tell the police officer that because you were approaching the light, the Doppler effect cause a blue shift that made the light appear green (wavelength 500nm). How fast would you have had to going for this to be true? Would the speeding ticket be justified? Explain.
Unit Waves Motion and Light
Approximately how many times around the Earth could a beam of light travel in one second?
The bright star Bellatrix in the constellation Orion has a surface temperature of 21,500 K. What is its wavelength of maximum emission in nanometers? What color is this star?
Unit Geometrics Optics
Show by means of a diagram why the image formed by a simple refracting telescope is upside down.
The four largest moons of Jupiter are roughly the same size as our Moon and are about 628 million kilometers from Earth. What is the size in kilometers of the smallest surface features that the Hubble Space Telescope (resolution of 0.10 arcsec) can detect? How does this compare with the smallest features that can be seen on the Moon with the unaided human eye (resolution of 1 arcmin)?
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