Astro C10 / L&S C70 (Fall 2009)

Head GSI : Aaron Lee

E-mail contact : a.t.lee@berkeley

Office : 541 Campbell Hall

Weekly Meetings (with Prof. Filippenko) : 6th floor lounge of Campbell Hall

• Fridays from 1 pm - 2 pm

Information for the graders of Astro C10 : C10 Fall 2009 Graders

Josh Shiode's Ay300 Site : Ay300 Fall 2009

Electronic Big Red Binder : EBRB

Think Pair Share Forum : TPS Questions

Stray Homework : Stray Homework

Midterm II Review : Midterm Review II

Last lecture is on MONDAY. You should come.

Review Sessions:

1. Friday, Dec 11, 2-4pm, Valley LSB 2040
2. Sunday, Dec 13, 2-4pm, Dwinelle 0145
3. Monday, Dec 14, 8-10pm, Dwinelle 0155

Old Announcements can be found here : Old Announcements

1. Understand Cosmology.

Astro Dept. cheating policy: http://astro.berkeley.edu/academics/cheating.html

UC Berkeley code of conduct: http://students.berkeley.edu/uga/conduct.asp

DSP Students: http://dsp.berkeley.edu/sbin/dspACCESS.php?_page=BerkAcomPolicy

bSpace!: https://bspace.berkeley.edu/

We, GSIs of Alex Filippenko's Astronomy C10 course, taught in the Fall of 2009, will make the utmost effort to

1. have patience when communicating with our students.
2. come to section prepared.
3. talk to the class and not the board (or empty space).
4. add variety to our sections to keep student interest.
5. have a genuine interest in the subject matter we are discussing.
6. aim to satisfy the middle level student, while giving ample opportunity for high level students to ask detailed questions.
7. remain positive through thick and thin, regardless of our stress level.
8. have flexibility in our teaching, allowing for the unknown.
9. make it clear how the material ties in with lectures and allow students to ask questions about the lecture material that confused them.
10. relate the material to the students and show how seemingly disparate concepts can lead to an understanding of bigger picture ideas.

http://www.skymaps.com/articles/index.html - Useful list of interesting objects and their relative positions.

http://www.skymaps.com/downloads.html - Monthly downloadable star chart.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/observing/skychart/ - Also check out the “Week at a Glance” section.

Useful Software (not free) : Starry Night Pro (my favorite, I will look for my CD and share if you are interested.)

http://badgrads.berkeley.edu/doku.php?id=private:ebrb:observing_labs_star_parties - EBRB Section

Graduate Student Instructors

1. Josh Burkart
2. Jackson Debuhr
3. Chat Hull
4. Therese Jones
5. Aaron Lee
6. Bernie Lin
7. Ryan Maas
8. James McBride
9. Thea Steele

Undergraduate Student Instructors

1. Chris Griffith
2. Anna Rosen

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Up to you! It's your final section. Be sure to hand out the course/teacher/GSI evaluations at some time during the section.

Review cosmology and any questions the students have.

Since there are no quizzes, I would suggest using the Scientific American article to motivate discussion on the expansion of the universe.

Possible demos: Expansion of the Universe (see EBRB for examples). I'll have some balloons available in the cabinet if you want to use the balloon analogy.

Dark matter, Hubble expansion, Gravitational Lensing (See McCourt et al.'s demo ; the glasses should be in the cabinet).

Midterm reviews!

Stellar evolution - stellar formation, life. Fusion vs. “burning” misconceptions. Lifetime of a star. Parallax and distance measurements. The H-R Diagram.

The Solar Telescopes will be available to use on the roof of Campbell Hall.

10 minutes of midterm review. Go over 1-3 of the questions.

Comets, meteor(-iods/-ites). Extrasolar planets: detection methods, biases in our observations, etc. Stellar parallax: measuring distances in astronomy (the Cosmic Distance Ladder).

Midterm reviews. In the past GSIs (and students) have enjoyed some form of Jeopardy game. Example questions can be found on the EBRB.

I have also tried not doing a game but assigning each group a set of slides and having them come up with the 5 or so most important topics in those slides. We then write it all on the board and discuss as many as we can. If you are feeling really nice, you might type them up and E-mail the list to your students.

Kepler's Laws and Gravity , Retrograde motion (We need better demos for this topic!)

Give your quiz. The layout of the section might go something like this:

1. 10 minutes of review Q&A.
2. 20 minutes for the Quiz.
3. 15 minutes to go over the solutions.
4. 5 minutes for a quick demo (e.g., the milktank, rotation of the moon, etc.)

Continue reviewing material on BBodies, Doppler, and Phases of the Moon.

Arc Lamp demos. The materials are in the lower-right corner of the demo cabinet. Do NOT let the students take the diffraction gratings.

The basics of electromagnetic radiation. Cover waves and photons and their relation to each other.

There are tons of worksheets dedicated to just light on the EBRB. Spectral lines can be covered, but the Arc Lamp demo will be done in all sections on Week 3.

Relate the basic physics of light to astronomy. For example, you can talk about emission and absorption nebulae. What causes absorption lines in a star? Why do you see emission lines?

Have the students get up in the class and act out energy level transitions. I am going to buy some Styrofoam balls and paint them various colors. Hopefully they will be in the demo cabinet by Thursday.

Review Josh's Ay300 Page: http://badgrads.berkeley.edu/doku.php?id=astro300_f09:your_first_section

Introductions and Ice-Breakers

Go through the syllabus for your section. Also, don't forget to announce TALC, office hours, star parties (if you have any dates yet), homework due dates, test/quiz dates, etc. You should also remember to tell your students what “TALC”, “star parties”, and even “office hours” are!

Activities:

1. Horoscope Debunking
2. Misconceptions in Astronomy
3. Brief overview of topics in the course
4. History of the Universe timeline
5. Scale Models (Sizes, Distances)
6. Calendar of History
7. Add your own here!!!

Math review worksheets (for TALC) can be found here :

• Problems : talcmath_probs.pdf
• Review : talcmath_review.pdf

1. Welcomes
   1. Introductions
   2. Ice-breakers
   3. The role of the GSI
   4. Overview of responsibilities (hand out books/course packets?)
      1. Sections
      2. Office Hours
      3. TALC (The Astronomy Learning Center)
      4. Review Sessions
      5. Star Parties
2. Decide on a permanent meeting time
3. Pick sections
4. TALC Assignments
5. Quick overview of bSpace and the EBRB
6. Your First Section
7. Things you need to do now