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.
"There was less metal in the universe and now there is more."
"How telescopes act as time machines. I never really knew about finite speed of light in relations to using a telescope, so this really grabbed my attention."
"The further away we look the further back in time we look."
"Lookback time, as it gives us a true scope of how little we know about what is truly going on light years away from us."
"The three-dimensional representation of the galaxies is terrifyingly interesting because the further we look out into space, the less thing we find to look at due to the lookback time and not seeing the edge of space but the edge of time."
"All the images of the galaxies were super-interesting. They looked so amazing I went and bought a calendar of it :)"
"The big bang and the different clues about it."
Describe something you found confusing from the assigned textbook reading or presentation preview, and explain why this was personally confusing for you.
"Dark matter forever confusing."
"First generation stars being metal-poor."
"I found metallification from stars to be confusing because I was uncertain how the metals would be dispersed from the core unless done via a supernova."
"How do we know specifically where the elements that make us up are from? I did not find this information in the textbook or slides."
"The Hubble law. I would definitely appreciate some review on this one because I honestly feel kind of lost about it."
"The cosmic expansion of space and not galaxies confuses me, because what's causing the expansion?"
"Where would the energy come from in the big bang theory?"
Indicate how the amount of these elements in the universe have changed over time.
(Only correct responses shown.)
Hydrogen: decreased [63%]
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. ******** [8] young stars that formed very recently. ********* [9] (There is a tie.) [0] (Neither, as stars cannot have metals.) [0] (Unsure/guessing/lost/help!) ***** [5]
Indicate what produced these elements.
(Only correct responses shown.)
Hydrogen in the sun's core: the very early universe [50%]
Helium in the sun's core: the sun [50%]
Carbon in your body: another star, in the past [50%]
Calcium in your bones: another star, in the past [41%]
Iron in your blood: another star, in the past [50%]
Gold and silver from mines: another star, in the past [27%]
Ask the instructor an anonymous question, or make a comment. Selected questions/comments may be discussed in class.
"Metals produced by stars is from fusion to heavier elements, why was only in trace amounts?" (Since fusion only occurs in the cores of stars, and most of the hydrogen in the outer layers don't participate in this process (other than pressing down on the core to provide the high pressures for fusion), then only a small amount of the hydrogen in a star ever gets fused into heavier elements.)
"So the metals produced by stars, is that from fusion to heavier elements?" (Yes.)
"Hypothetically, if someone went to a place super-far away in our galaxy, could they see dinosaurs on Earth or other possible lifeforms elsewhere?" (Theoretically, yes, but they would need a super-resolving power telescope to see that much detail from far away.)
"How did the 'big bang' form?" (Nobody really knows. But at least we have evidence that it did occur.)
"Did you celebrate Cinco de Mayo?" (Mrs. P-dog and I actually celebrated Sinkhole de Mayo.)
Do you teach over the summer? What are you doing for summer break?" (I don't teach during the summer, so Mrs. P-dog and I usually go camping on extended road trips for a few weeks.)
"Random question. Would you ever buy a Tesla?" (No. Where Mrs. P-dog and I go camping, there are no charging stations.)
"Do you believe in astrology?" (Nope.)
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