Friday, April 9, 2010

Describing Distances In Universe: Light Year



Curricular concept: Explain the relationship among common objects in the solar system, galaxy, and the universe.
Grade level: 7th
Tools needed:

computers with Internet access

Science journal

A pencil

Web resources:

Strategy:
Ask students how they would explain their address to someone who lived in another country. They might say their street address, city, state, and country. Now ask them to think about how they would describe the Earth's location to someone in another galaxy. Explain that the Earth is just one planet that revolves around the sun in the Solar System. The sun is just one of billions of stars within the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way is one of 30 galaxies in a "cluster" of galaxies called the Local Group. And the local group is just one cluster within a "super cluster" called the Virgo Super cluster. The Virgo Cluster is a tiny part of the entire Universe. Have students use this information to write their "space address":
Earth, Solar System, Milky Way, Local Group, Super cluster, Universe


How Big is the Universe? Once students learn how Earth fits into the large picture of the Universe, explain that the sizes and distances within the Universe are often difficult to imagine. For example, even if we could travel at the speed of light - the fastest speed possible - it would take over 4 years to reach the nearest star, the Solar System's nearest neighbor. A good place to begin is It's AWESOME.

Have students explore Light Years and discuss the reasons astronomers use this unit of measurement. What do astronomers know about objects they view billions of light years away? Encourage students to create their own Telescope as Time Machine on the classroom bulletin board. Have them research other interesting objects in space, find out how far away each object is, and what was happening in history at the time light left that object.

Let them read this comic strip carefully and try to associate the distances with the different elements (planets, nebula and galaxies) onscreen. If they choose incorrectly, the association will not occur.
Show you tube video on light year.
Scientists use scientific notation to describe the vast distances and sizes in the universe.


Questions:

How do astronomers describe the scale of the universe?

What is scientific notation?

How is scientific notation useful to astronomers?

Express 2,200,000 light years in scientific notation?




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