Under Canadian Skies…A Canadian

open-source online course in introductory astronomy

Martin ConnorsAthabasca University

Brian MartinThe King’s University College

Canadian Astronomy – an un-told story?

Since the time of the Plaskett telescope Canadian astronomers have been at the forefront of astronomical research. Despite this Canadian students would gain little or no insight into this rich history by scanning the pages of most popular astronomy texts!

1. Where and when did the first successful application of VLBI occur?

2. Who is credited with discovering the first black hole?3. What does the acronym MOST stand for?4. Who was the first person to detect interstellar matter (CN and CH

compounds) and estimate the temperature of the universe?5. Where and when where neutrino oscillations first observed?6. What is the fastest known pulsar and who is credited with its

discovery?7. This Canadian site which predates Stonehenge may have been a

Palaeolithic “observatory” – where is it?8. Which team is credited with the first discovery of an extra-galactic

black hole?9. First identification of water in comets is credited to this Nobel

Laureate – who is this?10.Who wrote the popular guide The Stars Belong to Everyone?

Not “Blatant Nationalism” - overt attention to authentic and appropriate Canadian content is pedagogically sound

The project…• Develop a web deliverable

intro course covering the usual topics– Currently 80% completion on

1st draft

– September piloting at King’s, late 2010 pilot at AU

• Highly interactive through use of Flash (ActionScript 3) and JAVA applets– Roughly 100 interactive

applets covering all topics

– Most applets are Flash based to enable easy transport across platforms

The project…• Support for open source

software such as Stellarium and Celestia

• PC/MAC/Linux compatible• “Scalable” from non-science

track to BSc track• To be used as stand-alone

resource or to augment existing texts

• Can be modularized to accommodate different curricula

• Adaptable to active-learning pedagogy as well as more traditional delivery modes

A sample page…

• Chapters divided into “lecture size” chunks

• Each section contains a number of worked examples

• Right-hand side margin (not shown) contains marginalia, quick tips etc

• Sections end with practice problems

• Units end with on-line practice quizzes

Exemplars…• The applet is part of a suite of applets

dealing with line profiles and line formation including:

– Temperature, pressure and rotation effects

• Applets encourage “what if …” questioning scenarios

Exemplars…• From Chapter 7.1 – The Solar Atmosphere

– Random walk from solar core

– Non-radial modes

• Applets are embedded in text and form part of the “story” in an interactive way

Exemplars…• From Chapter 12.1 – Discovery of the

Galaxy

• Applet that demonstrates different aspects of variable stars

Exemplars…• Doppler Shifts versus Cosmological redshift

Well known misconceptions are dealt with – here confusion between Doppler shift and cosmological redshift

Other Applets…An powerful interactive graphing tool is used in many applets – here is one dealing with distance moduli.

Stellar parallax is illustrated with this applet

Other Applets…Applet is linked to a collection of stellar models an allows investigation (by shell) of key model parameters

Just a small sample of applets being developed for this course

What’s next?

• Materials presented here would serve as a useful study guide but…

• Transition to a “stand-alone” e-text requires more work:– More detailed narrative– Elaboration of practice problem sets, quizzes

and on-line evaluation tools– Editing of existing text and applets

What’s next?• Can CASCA-Education become involved?

– Facilitate creation of editorial board and authoring team

• Open source project with nominal licensing fee to universities and colleges– Revenues would support employment of

summer students etc in resource development/maintenance

1. Where and when did the first successful application of VLBI occur? DRAO and Algonquin Park in 1968.

2. Who is credited with discovering the first black hole? Tom Bolton 1972 DDO

3. What does the acronym MOST stand for? Microvariability and Oscillation of STars

4. Who was the first person to detect interstellar matter (CN and CH compounds) and estimate the temperature of the universe? Andrew McKellar - 1940

5. Where and when where neutrino oscillations first observed? SNO - 1999

6. What is the fastest known pulsar and who is credited with its discovery? PSR J1748-2446ad discovered by Jason Hessels of McGill University

7. This Canadian site which predates Stonehenge may have been a Palaeolithic “observatory” – where is it? Majorville medicine wheel, Alberta

8. Which team is credited with the first discovery of an extra-galactic black hole? Hutchings, Cowley and Crampton – 1983.

9. First identification of water in comets is credited to this Nobel Laureate – who is this? Gerhard Herzberg

10. Who wrote the popular guide The Stars Belong to Everyone? Helen Sawyer Hogg

Answer key….

Questions?

• Working site at which course can be previewed:

http://www.kcvs.ca/martin/astro/au/

• This is a pre-release version (not edited – etc) but provides “proof-in-concept”