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 history of the Milky Way and big bang clues, a comic strip adaptation of Neil deGrasse Tyson's "The Most Astounding Fact" 2008 interview for TIME magazine, and Minute Physics' video explanation of Olbers' paradox.
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.
"Old stars tend to have less metal in their core and young stars have more from the old stars' type II supernovae. So, could the big bang could have been from the collective amount of stars exploding instead of one giant explosion?"
"I thought that both sections on the online blog were very interesting. The origins of life through the big bang and the origins of our milky way are both amazing scientific thinking points. I've had an interest in both of these philosophically for my entire life. Most people do I would hope."
"I thought it was really interesting to think about how we are all just star dust. This is just an awesome thing to brag about."
"The big bang, because the stars and space is basically a time machine. so looking at the stars can help us really dig deep and figure it out."
"That the universe is actually really old, and the atoms in our body are also really old."
"The big bang because it's like, wow. That just happened."
"Elements that make up the universe also make up life."
"When we look up into the night sky to see a star that is a certain amount of light years away, we are not seeing it at that current moment, but in fact we are seeing it in the past."
"How we are made out of dirt. Interesting because I never thought about how kind of everything in the universe is made out up from dirt. It's a new perspective."
"I think it is interesting how we use the term 'dirty' to describe space. Because when I look at it I see pretty."
"I found the concept of telescopes as time machines to be interesting. It's strange to think that we are never seeing the sky as it is, only as it has been in the past."
Describe something you found confusing from the assigned textbook reading or presentation preview, and explain why this was personally confusing for you.
"So if young stars are having more metal as the older generations uses up the hydrogen, will all stars at some point gradually have a smaller lifespan?"
"I found the concept of a continually expanding universe to be a bit confusing. If galaxies are spread out from one original center-point why is there unequal space between them?"
"I thought the idea of the universe being infinite was confusing. How is that possible?"
"What I thought was confusing was the video on how we can't see stars at are more light years than how old our earth is because their light hasn't had time to reach us yet or because they appear infrared to us so we can't see it."
"Age is confusing because how do we know that the stars are actually that old is there anything that can accurately tell us the age of the star?"
"Metallicity (not 'Metallica'--auto-correct, come on). I couldn't quite understand how the universe could only start with only hydrogen, and gradually create more metals as it grows."
"Gaps and edges in the universe were confusing to understand."
"I still find it confusing how we are made of stuff from 'stardust.' The concept just doesn't make sense to me but how the world and people formed has always confused me."
"Lookback time, I don't completely understand how it exists."
"The whole metallicity topic is quite confusing to me."
"How time (and distance) work in space."
Indicate how the amount of these elements in the universe have changed over time.
(Only correct responses shown.)
Hydrogen: decreased [50%]
Metals (elements heavier than hydrogen and helium): increased [77%]
The outermost layers of __________ are more abundant in metals (elements heavier than hydrogen and helium).
extremely old stars that formed a long time ago. ***** [5] young stars that formed very recently. ****************** [18] (There is a tie.) [0] (Neither, as stars cannot have metals.) [0] (Unsure/guessing/lost/help!) *** [3]
Indicate what produced these elements.
(Only correct responses shown.)
Hydrogen in the sun's core: the very early universe [58%]
Helium in the sun's core: the sun [31%]
Carbon in your body: another star, in the past [61%]
Calcium in your bones: another star, in the past [50%]
Iron in your blood: another star, in the past [62%]
Gold and silver from mines: another star, in the past [39%]
Ask the instructor an anonymous question, or make a comment. Selected questions/comments may be discussed in class.
"Can we go over everything in class please? If Star Wars opens with "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away", yet they already had space travel and laser weapons, how far behind them are we?" (What if that movie is just using human actors to portray the history of an alien civilization a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away?)
"How many questions will be on the final exam?" (Same number of questions as a midterm; but covering a wider range of topics. The specific study guide for the final exam is already posted on the course website.)
"Do you believe in the big bang theory?" (I think it's fair to say that I understand the evidence--and I think it's fair in this class to teach you and test your understanding of the evidence as well.)
"So stars that are moving towards us are blue shifted and stars that are moving away from us are red shifted?" (Or more specifically, the wavelength values of their absorption lines are shifted slightly toward the blue or the red end of the visible light spectrum.)
"Do you have anything fun planned for winter break?" (More of stuff like this.)
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