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.
"I found the topic of when the universe and how it began very interesting; I like reading about the theories and wonder if they are 100% accurate."
"How we can look back into time in a certain manner of speaking by observing the stars light that is coming from light years away. The fact that we are not seeing the object as it is but as it was from the amount of light years it takes to get here."
"Light is like time travel but not. Light from other areas may not currently exist today but it did years ago."
"How old our galaxy is, and how they could determine this was interesting because it's such a large span of time that is really hard to imagine."
"The early universe started out with basically just only hydrogen, and the first-generation massive stars then gathered this hydrogen and promptly got to work."
"That elements humans are made out of came from stars. I never realized were that closely connected to space."
"The iron, carbon, and calcium in us is as old as like everything."
"What I found cool was that the universe keeps expanding; I thought it was interesting because it makes me question about other life forms."
Describe something you found confusing from the assigned textbook reading or presentation preview, and explain why this was personally confusing for you.
"How metals have formed over time."
"The origins of elements in the universe."
"Olbers' question about the edge of the universe."
"How from the big bang planets and suns and galaxies formed."
"'Big bang'--I'm unclear as to what is being referred to exactly: if it's a process, or how it works overall."
"The Hubble law--I did not quite understand it and would like further explanation on it."
"Most of this reading I found confusing, didn't really understand or knew where to find the answers :("
Indicate how the amount of these elements in the universe have changed over time.
(Only correct responses shown.)
Hydrogen: decreased [31%]
Metals (elements heavier than hydrogen and helium): increased [54%]
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. ****** [6] (There is a tie.) [0] (Neither, as stars cannot have metals.) * [1] (Unsure/guessing/lost/help!) * [1]
Indicate what produced these elements.
(Only correct responses shown.)
Hydrogen in the sun's core: the very early universe [54%]
Helium in the sun's core: the sun [38%]
Carbon in your body: another star, in the past [38%]
Calcium in your bones: another star, in the past [45%]
Iron in your blood: another star, in the past [38%]
Gold and silver from mines: another star, in the past [38%]
Ask the instructor an anonymous question, or make a comment. Selected questions/comments may be discussed in class.
"Can we learn about black holes?" (We already did; but now we're going to learn about the big bang.)
"Do you think we'll one day actually be able use this concept of look-back time to make time travel (the science fiction kind) actually possible?" (The light that travels to us from distant objects is "old," and allows us to see what was going on at the moment that light started out from its source. The distant source of that light is living in the present, though, and there (conventionally) is no way to travel to that distant source and wind up in its past, even though we can see how it was in the past.)
"As I have always heard that the universe is ever expanding. Could there be galaxies forming in between those spaces and the light just hasn't reached us yet?" (The space between galaxies is empty (otherwise we wouldn't be able to see other galaxies), so no gas or dust is there for new stars and planets (and galaxies) to form. That stuff only happens within galaxies.)
"How was your Thanksgiving? (Eh, it was okay. I'm fine with okay; for me okay is pretty awesome. How was your Thanksgiving?)
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