During the summer of 2007, the IU Department of Astronomy, in collaboration with the IU Department of Physics and the IU School of Education, and in partnership with the SuperNova Acceleration Probe project and Sonoma State University, presented a 2-day workshop for middle school and high school science teachers on "Exploring the Dark Universe," funded through grants from Indiana Space Grant Consortium and the Department of Energy, Office of Science.

The workshop, held in late June at the IU School of Education, was attended by twenty teachers from middle and high schools in Indiana. The workshop included science content on astronomy, cosmology, dark matter, and dark energy, presented as as inquiry-based, classroom activities. The goals of the workshop were to provide teachers with a better understanding of the universe, to offer new opportunities for science in Indiana middle and high schools.

The workshop was presented by

• Lynn Cominsky (Sonoma State University)
• Stuart Mufson (IU Astronomy)
• James Musser (IU Physics)
• Catherine Pilachowski (IU Astronomy)
• Glenn Simonelli (SUNY Potsdam and IU Education)

Workshop Schedule (pdf)

Activities, Presentations, and Other Information

Activities

• Cepheids in M100
  • ESA/ESO Toolkit
  • ESA/ESO Exercise
• Cosmic Questions Ed Guide
  • Images for Modeling the Expansion
• Hubble Constant
  • Hubble Constant Spreadsheet
• Measuring the Mass of NGC 2742
• Cluster Velocity Dispersion
  • Java Lab by Chris Mihos
• Lensing Demo
• Large Scale Structure in the HDF
  • HDF with redshifts
• Supernova in M51
  • Sky Image Processer from Virginia Tech (Internet Explorer recommended with SIP)
  • M51 Images (FITS format for use with SIP)
• Absolute Magnitudes of Supernovae
  • Supernova light curves (scroll down the page to see them...)

Presentations

• The Universe (Simonelli)
  • Images for the Universe
• Astronomy Toolkit (Pilachowski)
• After the Big Bang (Cominsky)
• The Search for Dark Matter (Musser)
• Exploring Dark Matter through Gravitational Lensing (Pilachowski)
• What is a Supernova? (Cominsky)
• Dark Energy and How to Find It (Mufson)
• The Dark Universe: Dark Matter Matters (Pilachowski)
• The Dark Universe II (Cominsky)

Other Information

• Academic Standards
• Logarithms

Other Workshops for Teachers

For information about other IU Astronomy workshops for teachers, see our Educational Tools webpage.

Thanks to INSGC!

The support of the Indiana Space Grant Consortium for this summer workshop is gratefully acknowledged.