Kallisti Media Educator GUIDE www.cosmicjourneymovie.com Carina Nebula 2 TABLEOFCONTENTS Introduction .................................................................................................................................5 Using This Guide .........................................................................................................................6 Our Cosmic Journey ...................................................................................................................8 Activity 1: The Expanding Universe .......................................................................................10 Students will observe a model of the expanding Universe, and learn that as the Universe expands galaxies grow further and further apart. Activity 2: Measure the Galaxy ................................................................................................14 Students will learn to convert distances between celestial objects into the scale of rice grains representing the size of Earth. Activity 3: Paint by Numbers .................................................................................................................18 The lesson demonstrates the imaging process of astronomical satellites such as the Hubble Space Telescope. Activity 4: My, What Big Eyes You Have ..............................................................................................20 Students will learn that a telescope can gather more light and become more powerful when you increase the surface area of the lens or mirror. Activity 5: How Far Away Is Saturn? .....................................................................................................24 Students will “take a walk” to Saturn, and in the process learn to understand the vastness of the Solar System and the size differences between our home — Earth — and our destination, Saturn. Activity 6: Traveling to Saturn ...............................................................................................................30 Students will build upon their understanding of scale in regards to distance, and gain a new appreciation for how much time it takes to travel to Saturn and other celestial bodies. Activity 7: Personal Solar System ..........................................................................................................32 Students will develop a conceptual understanding of the size of objects in the Solar System and the immense distances between them. Activity 8: The Cassini Spacecraft .........................................................................................................34 Students will learn about the Cassini spacecraft by designing and building their own spacecraft out of marshmallows and toothpicks. Activity 9: Vision and Depth Perception ..............................................................................................38 Students will learn the function of depth perception, and the definition of binocular vision. Activity 10: 3D Glasses ...........................................................................................................................42 Students will build their very own pair of color filter 3D glasses, and in so doing learn that there are many ways to view 3D images. Activity Connections to Common Core Standards ............................................................................46 Glossary ....................................................................................................................................................50 Resources ..................................................................................................................................................54 3 Hubble Space Telescope 4 INTRODUCTION Cosmic Journey: Through Hubble and Cassini is a stunningly beautiful, totally immersive 3D journey from Shuttle launch to the far edge of the known Universe and back. Audiences will see the clouds of Jupiter, the rings of Saturn, gaseous nebulae and far away galaxies brought to life like never before. By combining images from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Cassini Orbiter with our very own custom technology we are able to deliver a riveting cinematic celebration of cosmology. www.COSMICJOURNEYMOVIE.com Film Information and Leasing: Big & Digital [email protected] (502) 212-1559 Acknowledgements: Educator’s Guide developed by Kallisti Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Special thanks to: Trey Swann; Cheryl Galloway, Science/Math/GATE Education Specialist; Kathy Burns, Language Arts/History/Social Science Education Specialist; Bonnie Swann, Executive Director of Curriculum NMUSD; Jim O’Leary; Raymond Shubinski. 5 USINGTHISGUIDE This guide was designed for teachers and students to accompany the film,Cosmic Journey: Through Hubble and Cassini. This guide is most powerful when used in concert with the film, but remains a valuable resource as a standalone guide for your classroom’s comic journey. Teachers are strongly encouraged to adapt activities included in this guide to meet the specific content standards of the grade level that they teach. There are ten activities that support the Common Core Standards for Visual and Performing Arts, Math, Science, Language Arts, and History/Social Science. In addition, this guide reinforces Digital Age readiness and 21st Century Skills. The content covered in each activity is marked in the content column below. These activities were designed to comply with the content standards for K-12 education. Specific grade levels are listed under each activity. CONTENT AREA Visual and Language History/Social 21st Century Math Science ACTIVITY Performing Arts Arts Science Skills 1. The Expanding Universe • • • 2. Measure the Galaxy • • • 3. Paint by Numbers • • • • 4. My, What Big Eyes You Have • • • 5. How Far Away Is Saturn? • • • • 6. Traveling to Saturn • • • • 7. Personal Solar System • • • • 8. The Cassini Space- craft • • • • • • 9. Vision and Depth Perception • • • • 10. 3D Glasses • • • • For more details on connections to Common Core Standards, please see Activity Connections to Common Core Standards on page 46. 6 7 OURCOSMICJOURNEY Looking Back in Time Centauri, and it still lies more than lenses he made himself. Again, he Since the earliest days of four light-years away. Meaning it stated that the Sun was the center astronomy, since the time of appears to us on Earth as it was of the Universe. Galileo, astronomers have shared over four years ago when the light In the late 1600s Newton a single goal -- to see more, see began its journey. In the case discovered the basic laws of Physics farther, see deeper. As we journey of distant galaxies, we see them that allow us to understand the through space, from Earth outward as they were millions and even cosmos. But, it was Edwin Hubble our expanding frontiers have billions of years ago when the who pushed the boundaries of revealed the true geography of our Universe was still relatively young. the known Universe farther than Universe. As civilizations grew and Most of the scientific all who came before him; Hubble technology progressed, we have community now believes that the discovered that our Milky Way become aware that our planet is Universe has been expanding was not the center of the Universe, just a dot in a vast Universe. ever since the Big Bang 13.7 but rather only one galaxy in billion years ago. Again, due to among billions. In 1923 Hubble Space is truly gargantuan! the time it takes light to travel, the finds Cepheid variable star in By combining our understanding farther away in space we focus Andromeda Galaxy (M31). Then of the massive scale of the our attention, the further back in in 1925 Edwin Hubble published Universe and light’s finite speed history we can see. The Hubble a historic paper that showed the we are given a valuable view into Space Telescope has witnessed distance to M31, proving that our the past. Literally, as we strain our galaxies forming barely half a Milky Way is only one of many gaze deeper into the Universe we billion years after the Big Bang galaxies. Finally in 1929 Hubble look further back in time. -- capturing light generated 13 correlates the distance to other “Because light takes time to billion years ago. By examining galaxies with their recessional get here from there, the farther Hubble’s extraordinary images, velocity, confirming the expansion away ‘there’ is the further in the astronomers can trace the origin of the Universe. past light left there and so we see and development of planets, The history of astronomy all objects at some time in the stars, galaxies and even the is a very long one and astronomy past,” explains Floyd Stecker of Universe itself. has been pursued by all cultures, NASA’s Goddard Space Flight so there is a wide range of tools. Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Early Astronomers Before the discovery of the So we can never see the Universe The history of astronomy is telescope, the only observing as it is, only as it was at various the study of humankind’s early device that people could use was stages of its development. attempts to understand the skies. the human eye, perhaps aided by In a vacuum, light travels All people have looked up and a variety of sighting devices. The at an impressive 186,282 miles wondered about the Sun, Moon, Chinese used armillary spheres, per second. Even at that speed planets, stars, and their complex Tycho Brahe used long sighting it takes light a long time to reach ballet of motion. The ancients tubes in the late 1500s, and us here on Earth.