Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA
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Wordle.net tag cloud for interesting topics covered in Midterm 2, generated by responses from Astronomy 210 students at Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA (http://www.wordle.net/show/wrdl/2082525/Untitled).
Students have a weekly online reading assignment (hosted by SurveyMonkey.com), where they answer questions based on reading their textbook, material covered in previous lectures, opinion questions, and/or asking (anonymous) questions or making (anonymous) comments. Full credit is given for completing the online reading assignment before next week's lecture, regardless if whether their answers are correct/incorrect. Selected results/questions/comments are addressed by the instructor at the start of the following lecture.
List at least three words describing interesting subjects covered on this midterm. (Graded for completion.)
[Responses have been edited to consolidate related common subjects.]
Student responses
Sections 30674, 30676
density, reddwarfs, spiral
redshifts, Dopplereffect, size, luminosity
galaxies, blackholes, nebulae
binarystars, supernovae, universeexpansion
stars, starclusters, luminosity
moon, stars, gas
stars, bigbang
H-Rdiagram, MilkyWay, universeexpansion
Wienslaw, H-Rdiagram, stars, nebulae, universeexpansion
stars
starlifetimes, stardeath, temperature
MilkyWay, stardeath, absolutemagnitude
Stefan-Boltzmannlaw, Hubbleslaw, finitespeedoflight
deathofstars
blackholes, typeIIsupernovae, typeIasupernovae
bigbang, starformation, MilkyWay
stars, temperature
galaxies, diskstars, halostars
galaxies, blackholes, MilkyWay
starformation, planetarynebulae, typeIIsupernovae
stars, nebulae, galaxies
notmuch
MilkyWay, luminosity
nebulae, H-Rdiagram, Hubbleslaw
MilkyWay, sunspots, emissionspectra
novae, H-Rdiagram, light
stars, darkmatter, age
supernovae, luminosity, MilkyWay
galaxies, MilkyWay, halostars
bigbang, universeexpansion, starformation
stars, starformation, starlifetimes
livefastdieyoung
explosion, universeexpansion
galaxies, stars, Dopplereffect
difficult, vast, mindopening
bigbang, stars, supernovae
stars, novae, supernovae
starlifecycles, blackholes, neutronstars, bigbang
stars, starformation, hypotheses
Blackholes, supernovae
stars, blackholes, galaxies
blackholes, spaghettification, pulsars
planetsize, luminosity, temperature
dwarfstars, redshifts, planets
bigbang, stars, telescopes
blackholes, redshifts, bigbang
stardeath, bigbang, finitespeedoflight
supergiants, planets, blackholes
Hubbleslaw, Kirchoffslaws, H-Rdiagram
blackholes, bigbang, MilkyWay
bigbang, starmasses
universe, redshifts, brightness
blackholes, Hubbleslaw, cosmicmicrowavebackground
bigbang
laughable, easy, yes
redshifts, expansion, H-Rdiagram
starformation, planetformation
spectra, starlifetimes, bigbang
nebulae, supernovae, whitedwarfs
luminosity, stars, planetaryformation
universeexpansion
blackholes, awesome
stars, redshifts
stars, time, light
gravity, darkmatter, planetformation, blackholes
Dopplereffect, bigbang, starclusters
stars, galaxies, blackholes
thoughtprovoking, fascinating, wondrous
supernovae, Dopplereffect, supergiants
MilkyWay, blackholes
planetarynebulae, supernovae, cosmicmicrowavebackground
blackholes, starclusters, Earth
chromosphere, photosphere, corona
luminosity, MilkyWay, Wienslaw
Idontremember
starmasses
MilkyWay, starclusters, cosmicmicrowavebackground
universeexpansion
stars, lifeanddeath, bigbang
light, starlifetimes, bigbang
stars, formation, galaxies
whitedwarfs, reddwarfs, mainsequence, stars
H-Rdiagram, starsizes, luminosity, temperature, fusion
Ijusthardahardtimewiththisunitoverall
Describe your most interesting subject, and briefly explain why this subject interested you. (Graded for completion.)
The following are all of the student responses to this question, verbatim and unedited.
"the subject talking about luminosity of different starts and the further back you look the further back in time"
"doppler effect because it applies to stuff in everyday life"
"i thought it was pretty interesting how the galaxies formed."
"binary stars. I just think its cool that 2 stars could borrow energy from eachother. and then eventually become a supernova."
"i really like the apparent and absolute magnitude. I think its cool to try and predict the size and brightness of planets which aren't the same distance away from earth."
"probably all the different types of stars"
"i cant remember what was on the midterm.."
"Universe expansion really interested me, I liked learning all of the theories and explanations. I had never learned about any of this before."
"It was intercultural communication because it covered A lot of what goes on in America, like segregation, hate, racism. Etc"
"the formation of the solar system the theory of the big bang was very interesting because it is the beginning."
"The novas and supernovas because they are such unbelievably violent reactions."
"I like the HR diagram because it makes sense to me."
"The first week when we talked about the star wheels that was the only subject that I really understood out of the whole semester"
"The expansion of the universe as shown by Hubble's law is such a foreign conscept to me being as the space around me never expands."
"Supernovas because they were cool."
"supernovas, because things exploding is cool."
"The most interesting subject was discussing the Big Bang and how everything in the Universe is made up of extra stuff, because it survive annihilation."
"massive main sequence stars fuse hydrogen and helium"
"i like the whole relevance of the universe and the way its moving and that whole subject i find it interesting"
"astronomy because your learning about new unknown areas"
"I really liked the explanation of coming and going of stars on the main-sequence. The 'House Party' example! It was really easy to understand and interesting too."
"I was most interested in galaxies because i did not know much about them and was interested to learn how big they are."
"the beginning of the class cause that seemed more astronomy than science.
The light spectrum. This is very useful material to use in everyday life."
"I think it was interesting learning about size/distance/luminosity/mass of stars. It is crazy that there are ways that we can figure all of these things about stars even though they are light years away from us. It proves how much since has advanced over the years."
"Im most interested in the Milky way because It is what I felt I learned least about as a child."
"the big bang, cause i think its a hoax, there are too many flaws in the theory"
"I really like determining the age of stars of the luminosity, temp, size. "
"It's fun and uses reasoning and just adds a little spice to straight memorization and regurgitation on exams."
"the milky way: because i knew it was big, but not as unfathomable big as it is"
"i like the whole relevance of the universe and the way its moving and that whole subject i find it interesting"
"The Big Bang has always been of interest to me, it was nice to learn some that I didn't know already."
"i'm not sure which subject is most interesting. its all kinda interesting."
"How massive stars use up hydrogen faster and live shorter lives as appose to low mass stars . yet the sun has been burning since it has been discovered, many many years before the homosapien started studying it and its still around."
"the box thing we did to see the size lum or temp. it was a simple tool that we can learn so much from"
"it was interesting on how big/small or hot/cold stars could get"
"The section on the timespan of the big bang I felt was most interesting. "
"Just the scope of what was covered is one of the main reasons I took this class."
"expansion of the universe, it's interesting how th universe is expanding, will the expansion stop and the niversecollapse on itself?"
"time travel, because if we can get into time. who knows the endless possibilities"
"I liked learning about the big bang and the expanding universe and how we discovered the evidence behind it."
"Learning about binary systems, and how/why novas and supernovas occur were the most interesting topics to me- mainly because i had no prior knowledge about them."
"I like learning about the stars and their temp compared to mass"
"The most interesting subject for me was the death of stars. I enjoyed learning about how different sized stars have completely different deaths, and what kind of cataclysmic result comes from the death of these stars. The concept of black holes also largely fascinates me, and it's something I would want to look more into."
"i think the black holes and nuetron stars where most interesting since they are the most dense and powerful known bodies in the univers"
"nebula's because we can really see them in the sky and it is more concrete than other topics."
"the red and white dwarfs, the difference between them"
"i find that business"
"black holes, because i dont completely understand them"
"Finite speed of light, because looking into the past is fascinating."
"the planets because i would like to think we could live on some of them one day"
"Hubble law, the development of the universe is very interesting, we all want to know how we got here and whats going to happen."
"the big bang was very interesting because I always wondered how astronomers even theorized that there was one and now I know!"
"to see how everything was created and to see how scientist comes up with theory's on how it happen"
"The idea that the universe has an end we can see is just mind blowing to me!"
"the big bang theory. its a representation of the combined efforts of thousands of years of thought and ambition that motivates and perptuates discveries to come."
"the HR diagram,milky way and thats about it"
"star life was pretty cool. having to do with explosions."
"expansion of the universe is cool because it leads back to the big bang."
"distance between planets"
"I really enjoyed learning about the stars and being able to compare them using the H-R diagram because stars are my favorite thing in the sky
novas, because they go boom!"
"The H-R diagram was easy to understand and made sense and I actually had fun figuring it out."
"i liked how we proved that there was no big bang theory"
"All of astronamy interests me!"
"the milky way because it reminds me of the candy."
"I liked the essay question about the stars on the HR diagram example. It was fun to write about why this example was impossible."
"the finite speed of light, because it is interesting how we are viewing pockets of time when we look in to the sky"
"gravity/dark matter, the origins of gravity are interesting to me."
"I was really interested to understand more about the big bang theory and how the general scientist believes the univers began...i believe in the fact of creation but its still interesting to see other view points"
"Galaxies, i think it's fascinating not knowing what is out there."
"Star clusters because they were easy to understand."
"Supergiant stars because it's just amazing to imagine a star that's of such epic proportions."
"black holes because we dont know exactly what it is"
"The expansion of the universe and how it is expanding. The idea that space itself is expanding is very intriguing to me."
"Black Holes, for whatever reason they have always interested me and now I have finally learned about them"
"types of super nova explosions."
"i liked the essay question about the the size and luminosity of two stars! you didnt ask to draw a picture but i did anyways.. it makes more sense to me when i draw it!"
"i dont remember"
"the life span of stars"
"i really enjoyed learning about the cosmic microwave background because you did a very good visual with the movie showing examples the dancing/moshing"
"The expanding universe because it's the galaxies but the spaces in between that are expanding."
"the big bang because i had never understood the theory"
"the 'big bang' because i've heard the phrase but didn't know what that theory was and have always been courious on how the universe was created"
"Galaxies. It is so amazing to ponder at how much mass is out there!"
"the stephan law thing and about how a star can be smaller and brighter becasue the larger star has a faster fusion rate"
"The most interesting subject to me was discussing the H-R Diagram on how stars came, left, or stayed on the main sequence line. I also enjoyed learning what these stars became after their fusion was finished. I liked how this concept was related to a house party."
"Once again, I just hard a hard time with this unit."
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