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 the Milky Way's shape, size and composition and spiral arm structure and formation.
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.
"Dark matter is really cool. It's there but you cant see it. How is that not interesting?"
"I thought the whole chapter was interesting, I enjoyed learning about the galaxy we live in."
"Shapely's process of measuring and calibrating Cepheid variable stars. It took some serious intellect to figure out what he did. "
"How the arms of the Milky Way are formed, and the way the stars aren't going into the center but are just following a circle, but looks like an arm because they group up at certain points."
"The length of time it takes the sun to complete an orbit in the Milky Way. Interesting because you never think about the sun being the one to orbit something."
"I found it interesting that the mass holding the Milky Way together does not reflect light, absorb light, emit light, or interact with light in any way but the Milky Way looks full of light."
Describe something you found confusing from the assigned textbook reading or presentation preview, and explain why this was personally confusing for you.
"Globular clusters and how they determine our location in and the size of our galaxy."
"What I found to be particularly confusing was gravity and orbits of the Milky Way. This was confusing to me just because it is hard to recognize the difference in the two motions on the slide which made it further more confusing for me."
"I'm confused as to why the Milky Way appears 'blue'--shouldn't it appear pink due to hydrogen and star formation?"
"The second presentation was a bit confusing to me. I don't understand what the Pimpstar™ rims are about and how that works."
In your experience, how much of the "Milky Way" (the band of faint stars across the celestial sphere) have you been able to see in the night sky?
As much as can be seen with the naked eye. ************** [14] Not very much. ***************** [17] Barely seen it. ********* [9] (Never been able to see it.) ****** [6] (Unsure/guessing/lost/help!) [0]
Using the most powerful light-gathering telescopes in the darkest skies, up to how much of the stars in our entire galaxy can be observed from Earth?
1%. ********* [9] 5%. ****** [6] 10%. *************** [15] 50%. **** [4] 100%. ** [2] (Unsure/guessing/lost/help!) ****** [6]
If you did not have access to a mirror while camping, what could you do to find out whether or not you're having a bad hair day?
"Simple, I would bust out my phone and use the front-facing camera app."
"I can usually feel the horribleness when I wake up."
"Use something reflective like a glass bottle or some type of shiny metal to fashion a crude mirror."
"Look into the reflection of your trusted camping spoon."
"I would know by rubbing my hand against my head. I would feel a clump of hair that is giving me my cow lick."
"My shadow."
"I have no idea. I wouldn't bother with it, I'm CAMPING! :)"
"See if wild animals run away from you. Or hit on a fellow camper and see how far you get."
Ask the instructor an anonymous question, or make a comment. Selected questions/comments may be discussed in class.
"I enjoy your presentations. Even with the lowest grade of my life, I still find your class to be the most interesting."
I am totally gonna get me some of those Pimpstar™ rims!"
"That bike of yours is legen...wait for it...DARY!"
"I just saw the movie Ender's Game and in it they were traveling in space. They showed large and small dust particles and emission of hydrogen. But when they for to a planet that was near a yellow medium mass star it has some things shimmer the color yellow. Is that possible?" (No. But it's just a movie.)
"Is there a way to tell when our galaxy eats another galaxy?" (It's happening right now!)
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