The move away from an Earth-centered view of the Universe

Activities

1. A feeling for Fields

This activity explores some of the characteristics of 'field theories'. Students are encouraged to perform a simple experiment. The critical thing is for the students to explain the well-known data in terms of 'field'.

Teacher Notes and Student Sheets (, 42 KB)

2. Dialogue concerning the Origin of the Universe

This activity requires the students to consider the basic ideas of the Big Bang hypothesis in a novel form that links back to Galileo's dialogues.

Teacher Notes and Students Sheets (, 42 KB)

3. E.T. can't phone Home

Chapters 15 and 16 tell the story of humankind's vision increasing in scope from the enclosed Universe of the ancients to the boundless Universe of modern science. This activity and the activity 'We should be so lucky' begin to consider the consequences of this view in relation to extraterrestrial life. In E.T. students are encouraged to use simple physics to critically examine some fictional scenarios as well as to consider what would happen if we really did contact extraterrestrials.

Teacher Notes and Student Sheets (, 33 KB)

4. Factors of Ten

This activity gives students an opportunity to consider the scale of the universe as described by modern science.

Teacher Notes and Student Sheets (, 32 KB)

5. Solar system timeline

In the first activity students construct a timeline based on the story of the geo/heliocentric debate, in the second the story is used to illustrate the scientific method as a process. The third activty is a fun multi-choice activity designed to bridge the solar system topic into the expanding universe topic.

Teacher Notes and Student Sheets (, 27 KB)

6. We should be so lucky

This activity allows students to read an article about the possibility of extra-terrestrial life and to criticise some of the assumptions and arguments used in the debates.

Teacher Notes and Student Sheets (, 37 KB)

7. What did Galileo See?

This activity involves constructing a simple 'galilean' telescope, making observations of a lunar image, recording observations and answering questions on validity of observations.

Teacher Notes and Student Sheets (, 76 KB)

8. Modelling scientific research with playing cards

This activity is one way of using a pack of playing cards to model the process of scientific research through observation, generating hypotheses and then testing the hypotheses until a rule is found that fits all the observations. It was written by Tom Mc Goldrick who is an SPU teacher at City and Islington College, London.

Teacher notes and student sheets (, 174 KB)