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Online reading assignment: Kirchhoff's laws (SLO campus)

Astronomy 210, fall semester 2013
Cuesta College, San Luis Obispo, CA

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.

The following questions were asked on reading textbook chapters and previewing presentations on Kirchhoff's laws.

Selected/edited responses are given below.

Describe something you found interesting from the assigned textbook reading or presentation preview, and explain why this was personally interesting for you.
"Learning about the Doppler effect and how it applies to objects in space was pretty cool that one can determine if an object is heading towards Earth via blueshifts, or if the object is retreating our position via redshifts."

"The continuous spectrum because it was interesting to see that the wavelengths were almost equal on a intensity versus wavelength graph."

Describe something you found confusing from the assigned textbook reading or presentation preview, and explain why this was personally confusing for you.
"I am having trouble determining the three different spectra when guessing at the pictures from the blog. I don't understand how we are determining the spectra from the pictures."

"How blueshifts and redshifts are detected by changes in the positions of features in a star's spectrum."

"Redshifts and blueshifts: a little confusing when you realize that the actual colors of red and blue are not seen."

Suppose you are standing on the sidewalk as a car, with its horn continuously on, passes by (video link). The loudness of the car horn:
starts high, then drops lower.  ******** [8]
starts low, then goes higher.  ** [2]
starts low, goes higher, then drops back down to low.  ********************************* [33]
starts high, goes lower, then goes back up to high.   ** [2]
(Unsure/guessing/lost/help!)  [0]

Suppose you are standing on the sidewalk as a car, with its horn continuously on, passes by (video link, same as above). The pitch (high note/low note) of the car horn:
starts high, then drops lower.  ************************ [24]
starts low, then goes higher.  [0]
starts low, goes higher, then drops back down to low.  ******** [8]
starts high, goes lower, then goes back up to high.   ******* [7]
(Unsure/guessing/lost/help!)  ** [2]

Match the spectrum type with their apperance.
(Only correct responses shown.)
Rainbow containing all colors: continuous [82%]
Rainbow with thin black lines: absorption [87%]
Colored lines on a black background: emission [82%]
Given off by hot, dense object: continuous [68%]
Given off by hot, diffuse gas atoms: emission [61%]
Passing through cool, diffuse gas atoms: absorption [61%]

Ask the instructor an anonymous question, or make a comment. Selected questions/comments may be discussed in class.
"Can you post the answers to the flashcard questions online, so when we are studying for the quizzes we can see if we are getting the answers right?" (You can e-mail me about the questions on the archived quiz or other topics up until 10:00 PM the night before the quiz, and I will attempt to respond to you sometime later that night (or very early that morning.)

"Glad you're not that big of a Big Bang Theory fan. That show is overrated and everyone should watch Community instead!" (Word.)

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