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Resources for Teaching Astronomy in UK Schools Paul Roche, Andy Newsam, Sarah Roberts, Tom Mason and John Baruch

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Resources for Teaching Astronomy in UK Schools Paul Roche, Andy Newsam, Sarah Roberts, Tom Mason and John Baruch Space for education; education for space Resources for teaching astronomy in UK schools Paul Roche, Andy Newsam, Sarah Roberts, Tom Mason and John Baruch ABSTRACT This article looks at a selection of resources currently available for use in the teaching of astronomy in UK schools. It is by no means an exhaustive list but it highlights a variety of free resources that can be used in the classroom to help engage students of all ages with astronomy and space science. It also lists several facilities with a specific astronomy/space focus that can be visited by schools groups, and briefly describes what is available at each site. The potential of astronomy and space to inspire Below is a quick summary of just a selection in students an appreciation of science as a of some of the best software, websites and online whole is well known but, without a wide range resources that UK schools can access. of quality resources, it is very difficult for any Software teacher to unlock that potential. Fortunately, Stellarium (www.stellarium.org) many such resources exist, although, as seen in Stellarium is a free open source planetarium the accompanying article on p. 63, there are often package for your computer. It shows a realistic problems with finding them and identifying how sky in 3-D, as you would see with the naked eye, they might best be used. binoculars or a telescope from the Earth. You In this article we highlight a selection of can even ‘turn off’ the atmosphere! It comes particularly useful resources and give an idea of with a database of over 600 000 stars, which can what their scope is. So, while this is certainly not be expanded to about 210 million, and it allows an exhaustive list, it should provide anyone with a you to simulate all of the planetary phenomena core of resources to support their teaching. you could wish for, including eclipses, Online resources occultations, transits and retrograde motion. It is a fantastic way to help students visualise the The World Wide Web has had close links to night sky and the complex motions of bodies in astronomy from its inception and there are now a the solar system. very large number of websites, software packages, archives and online tools to support any level of Celestia (www.shatters.net/celestia) astronomer – from the most tentative beginner to Celestia allows the user to explore the universe the professional research astrophysicist. in 3-D. It features a zoom function that lets you In particular, while ‘hands-on’ access to explore space across a huge range of scales, the wonders of the night sky may be tricky from galaxy clusters down to spacecraft only a given the typical UK weather conditions, there few metres across. A ‘point and go to’ interface is no shortage of excellent material out there makes it simple to navigate through the universe for the armchair astronomer. A number of free to the object you want to visit, and the database ‘planetarium’ software packages are available of objects and tours can be expanded with a wide that allow users to fly through the solar system, range of add-on features. visiting planets, moons, asteroids and comets, SalsaJ (www.euhou.net) or to travel further afield and get ‘close up’ with Part of a suite of multilingual resources developed star clusters, nebulae and galaxies, and robotic by the European Union Hands-On Universe telescopes allow you to observe from the best (EU-HOU) consortium of educators, the SalsaJ observatories without leaving your home. SSR March 2012, 93(344) 53 Resources for teaching astronomy in UK schools Roche, Newsam, Roberts, Mason and Baruch software package allows users to manipulate Zooniverse (www.zooniverse.org) astronomical data and make basic measurements. The Zooniverse contains some of the most Telescope data are often in a non-standard format, innovative resources currently available online, called FITS files, which cannot be opened by allowing users to help scientists in a range of normal software packages, but SalsaJ allows data-crunching tasks from classifying galaxies users to work on these files and examine images, (GalaxyZoo) to helping meteorologists reconstruct measure spectra, make colour-composite images the weather from old wartime ships’ logs. The site and produce animations of asteroid motion, and has a variety of highly engaging interactive projects so on. in astronomy, where users can contribute towards real scientific research – ‘citizen science’ in action. LTImage (www.schoolsobservatory.org.uk/obs/ software/ltimage) ESERO-UK (www.esero.org.uk) Like SalsaJ, the LTImage software from the The website of the UK branch of the European National Schools’ Observatory (NSO) allows Space Education Resource Office (ESERO-UK), users to work with FITS-format data. It is also known as the UK Space Education Office, designed to combine professional-quality image is a one-stop shop for space and astronomy processing and data analysis with extreme ease education. So, if there is something that you of use. As such, it is an ideal introduction to would like to see but cannot find, a good place many aspects of astronomical data analysis, from to go for more information is the ‘Teacher simple image enhancement through to brightness support’ section of the ESERO-UK website. You measurement and multi-colour imaging. will also find the contact details of your local Space Ambassador, who is there to help you use FITS Liberator (www.spacetelescope.org/ astronomy and space to enhance your teaching. projects/fits_liberator) Fancy producing some stunning colour images Other resources of astronomical objects, but want to work In addition to the packages listed above, the with a powerful image processing package educational resources associated with the NSO like Photoshop? FITS Liberator is a powerful and the Faulkes Telescope Project (FTP) (see the stand-alone piece of software that allows you to next section) both offer a wealth of material for convert FITS data into a more standard image use in the classroom, including sample data sets format, such as TIFF or JPEG, so that you can for students as well as ideas for engaging students import them into most image processing software with ongoing scientific research projects: packages and generate incredible images of the l FTP – Educational Resources: resources. universe on your PC. faulkes-telescope.com; Websites l NSO: www.schoolsobservatory.org.uk/activ. D2E (education.down2earth.eu) Robotic telescopes for UK schools Ever wished that a giant meteorite would crash into the school and remove all your problems A challenge when teaching astronomy or space in one go? Well, with the impact calculator is not enthusing pupils (that comes largely function on the UK Science and Technology automatically, given the subject area) but ensuring Facilities Council (STFC)-funded ‘Down that the scientific nature of astronomy comes to Earth’ project, you can at least do that in across. However, the very aspects of astronomy virtual space. The D2E project is based on the that inspire and enthuse – the fundamental assertion that one way to get students interested questions, the scope and scale, the ongoing in science, technology, engineering and struggle to find answers – are the very things that mathematics (STEM) subjects is to allow them make it a scientific activity so, if that step can be to work with the ‘3Ds’ – death, destruction and made, astronomy provides a very powerful tool to dinosaurs. Build virtual asteroids and comets, promote a better appreciation of science as a whole. then slam them into the location of your choice The NSO and the FTP were set up to exploit and see the resulting impact crater on Google that opportunity by allowing pupils to work Maps – gravity and kinetic energy have never alongside professional astronomers on world- been so much fun … leading research telescopes. In addition, UK 54 SSR March 2012, 93(344) Roche, Newsam, Roberts, Mason and Baruch Resources for teaching astronomy in UK schools schools can access a suite of smaller instruments located on the island of Tenerife through the Bradford Robotic Telescope, so there are many opportunities to gather your own images remotely, regardless of local weather conditions. The National Schools’ Observatory www.schoolsobservatory.org.uk The NSO is a truly wonderful resource which is so much more than just a sophisticated eye to the universe. Just as importantly, it gives us a powerful platform from which to proceed with inspiring students in science through astronomy. Figure 1 Pupils busy on the NSO website; image (science teacher) courtesy of the NSO The NSO uses the £5 million Liverpool Telescope (LT), which is owned and operated by Liverpool dramatic unpredictable events such as supernovae, John Moores University (LJMU). One of the or their even bigger cousins gamma ray bursts, world’s largest fully robotic telescopes (together through to monitoring of extra-solar planets or with its clones the Faulkes telescopes in Hawaii asteroids, so-called ‘time-domain astrophysics’ is and Australia), it is sited not in Liverpool, of becoming increasingly important and requires a course, but on La Palma in the Canary Islands new kind of telescope. on one of the best observing sites in the world. The LT works by collecting ‘observing With a 2 metre diameter primary mirror and programmes’ from astronomers and using computer a comprehensive suite of instruments (from systems at the telescope to build and update an simple optical imaging cameras to spectrographs observing schedule in real time, without human and polarimeters), it is used by professional involvement (which means we all get some astronomers all over the world. However, it is sleep!). Able to react to sudden events, optimise not the size that makes it special (there are much observations to the current weather and atmospheric larger telescopes) but the unique way in which it conditions, and even to analyse its own data, the operates that make it such a powerful tool.
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