February, 2005 WORKSHOP SCHEDULE
How Old Is Your Universe? Workshop for middle grade science
teachers
On
Friday and Saturday, February 18 & 19 the focus of the workshop will be the
Age of the Earth:
1) determining
the age by understanding the rates at which various geological processes
occur, and
2) determining
the age by determining the relative timescales established in the fossil
record.
Friday,
18 February – Age of the Earth
3:00 ESTB
420 Check-in
3:30 ESTB
420 overview of Plate Tectonics
4:15 ESTB
420 materials of the Earth –
rocks, minerals, and the rock cycle
5:15 planetarium
DINNER
6:00 ESTB
420 principles for dating the
Earth
7:00 ESTB
420 relative time and geological
time scale
7:45 ESTB
420 absolute geologic time and
radiometric dating
8:30 ESTB
420 deep time
Saturday,
19 February – Age of the Earth
8:00 ESTB 420 continental
breakfast during video presentation
8:30 ESTB
420 Concepts of Relative Time and
Age Dating
9:15 ESTB
420 Activity: Who’s on First – Relative Dating Activity
9:45 ESTB
420 Overview of Fossils an Fossil
Kit
10:15 ESTB
420 Activity: Fossils and Biostratigraphy Exercise
10:45 ESTB
420 Activity: Progression of Life Poster
10:45 ESTB
420 Discussion – Implementation
11:30 field
trip LUNCH on the bus
12:00 field
trip Sedimentary rocks and
fossils in the field (Paleozoic of south central KY)
3:30 field
trip wrap-up
4:00 field
trip post-test
On Friday and Saturday, February 25 & 26 the
focus of the workshop will be the Age of the Universe.
The key to understanding how old is the universe is to understand how big is the universe.
The first two days of the workshop introduce some of the methods used to determine the distances to objects in our cosmos.
2:30 TCCW
201 Check-in, confirm receipt of
pre-tests and registration forms
3:00 TCCW
201 cosmogenesis – an explanation for
where it all comes from
3:20 TCCW
201 surveying the heavens: parallax as
an application of "depth perception"
3:45 planetarium using parallax to measure distance
5:00 planetarium how to increase number of stars with
measurable parallax
5:15 planetarium DINNER
6:00 TCCW
201 properties of stars: location,
luminosity, temperature, and apparent brightness
6:30 TCCW
201 making sense of stellar properties
– the HR diagram
6:45 TCCW
201 standard candles, relationship
between brightness and distance
7:45 TCCW
251 Curtis-Shapley debate: Are
"spiral nebulae" part of our Milky Way Galaxy?
8:00 TCCW
251 Cepheid-type pulsating variable
stars
8:45 TCCW
251 implementation strategies
{ 9:00 rooftop
obs optional - opportunity for telescope observing}
8:00 TCCW
201 continental breakfast during video
presentation
8:30 TCCW
201 Color Analyzers - the spectrum of
visual light
8:50 TCCW
201 construct spectroscopes, spectral
analysis
9:40 TCCW
201 spectrum detective
10:45 planetarium Doppler shift, redshift/blueshift of light
11:30 planetarium LUNCH
12:15 TCCW 251 lookback
time, distance scale
1:00 TCCW
251 Cosmic Distance Ladder
1:15 TCCW
251 recession velocity and Hubble’s
Law
2:15 TCCW
251 evidence of our beginnings
3:00 TCCW
251 history of the universe compared
to passage of a year
3:30 TCCW
201 implementation strategies
4:00 TCCW
201 post-test