This web-based curriculum focuses on basic introductory astronomy concepts. The material is presented through interactive exercises, animations, and videos. Adopters can choose any combination of the ten chapters for a particular class. Each chapter... (View More) includes authentic student interaction with actual data where possible. Students master the scientific concepts and reasoning processes that lead to our current understanding of the universe through interactive tasks, prediction and reflection, experimentation, and model building. (View Less)

Students read and analyze four different articles about the NuSTAR mission discoveries regarding black holes. This activity is from the NuSTAR Educators Guide: X-Rays on Earth and from Space, which focuses on the science and engineering design of... (View More) NASA's NuSTAR mission. The guide includes a standards matrix, assessment rubrics, instructor background materials, and student handouts. (View Less)

Students will use the law of reflection to reflect a laser beam off multiple mirrors to hit a sticker in a shoebox. Since X-ray telescopes must use grazing angles to collect X-rays, students will design layouts with the largest possible angles of... (View More) reflection. This activity is from the NuSTAR Educators Guide: X-Rays on Earth and from Space, which focuses on the science and engineering design of NASA's NuSTAR mission. The guide includes a standards matrix, assessment rubrics, instructor background materials, and student handouts. (View Less)

This collection of math problems is based on a weekly series of space and Earth science problems distributed to teachers during the 2013-2014 school year. The problems were intended for students looking for additional challenges in the math and... (View More) physical science curriculum and were created to be authentic glimpses of modern science and engineering issues, often involving actual research data. Includes information for teachers and answer key. (View Less)

As science extension activities, this book of problems introduces students to mapping the shape of the Milky Way galaxy, and how to identify the various kinds of galaxies in our universe. Students also learn about the shapes and sizes of other... (View More) galaxies in our universe as they learn how to classify them. The math problems cover basic scientific notation skills and how they apply to working with astronomically large numbers. It also provides exercises in plotting points on a Cartesian plane to map the various features of our Milky Way. (View Less)

This book introduces students to some of the most unusual places in our galaxy outside of our solar system. Answering the question, "How many stars are in the sky?" introduces students to basic counting, tallying, and grouping techniques, as well as... (View More) allowing for the use of simple proportions. (View Less)

In this activity, students peruse the Cosmic Times posters to answer open-ended questions. The activity serves as introduction to the Cosmic Times suite of curriculum support materials that explores how our understanding of the nature of the... (View More) universe has changed over the last century. (View Less)

In this lesson, students work in cooperative teams to understand the primary scientific advances over the past century that have contributed to our current understanding of the universe. The activity serves as introduction to the Cosmic Times suite... (View More) of curriculum support materials that explores how our understanding of the nature of the universe has changed over the last century. (View Less)

This book presents 49 space-related math problems published weekly on the SpaceMath@NASA site during the 2011-2012 academic year. The problems utilize information, imagery, and data from various NASA spacecraft missions that span a variety of math... (View More) skills in pre-algebra and algebra. (View Less)

Students will learn about the Spitzer Infrared Observatory and a recently observed dust ring around Saturn through reading a NASA press release and viewing a NASA video segment. Then students will use scientific notation to perform calculations to... (View More) understand the size, mass, and volume of dust and the new dust ring. Common Core State Standards for Mathematics and English Language Arts are identified. This activity is part of the Space Math multi-media modules that integrate NASA press releases, NASA archival video, and mathematics problems targeted at specific math standards commonly encountered in middle school textbooks. The modules cover specific math topics at multiple levels of difficulty with real-world data and use the 5E instructional sequence. (View Less)