ADC for Students and Educators

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[kids at scope]
Photo courtesy of The Albuquerque Astronomical Society

ADC for Students & Educators

Special Note: Today there are very many fine Web sites for Astronomy Education. We cannot and should not duplicate those pages here, nor can we include links to all of them. Instead, this page includes information on using ADC resources and links to selected external resources for learning about or teaching astronomy. If you have suggestions for additional links, please send them to the curators at the e-mail addresses listed at the bottom of the page. We regret that we may not be able to accommodate every such request. THE ADC IS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONTENT OF EXTERNAL SITES LINKED FROM THIS PAGE.

Educational Uses of ADC

Educational Resources from the ADC:

How can I use the ADC in my classroom?

The Astronomical Data Center specializes in archiving and distributing collections of data that have been published by professional astronomers. Most of these data sets are in the form of computer-readable tables of numbers, rather than images. (Check out our ADC CD-ROMs which contain hundreds of astronomical catalogs.)

In spite of our emphasis on serving professional astronomers, we have data that can be used by educators for hands-on astronomy learning. Examples of the kinds of questions that students could address are:

Make a model of the stars within 20 light years of the sun. Make the balls to size and color them appropriately.
Make another model to show the positions of these stars 10,000,000 years from now.
Make a series of drawings to show how the appearance of the Big Dipper changes with time at 10,000 year intervals.
What color (spectral type) are most variable stars with periods longer than 200 days? Is the answer the same for stars with periods less than 1 day?
Are there any variable stars you might be able to see from where you live without a telescope? At what time of the year? How frequently would you have to look at them to see them vary? To plot a light curve?
In what direction, with respect to the sun, do stars with radial velocities larger than 100 km/sec move?
Among the stars nearer than 200 light years, do any appear to be approaching the sun? If so, how close to the sun will each come? When?

Where can I find:

Astronomy Education Themes

Exploring the Night Sky