The Hubble Extreme Deep Field Credit: NASA; ESA; G. Illingworth, D. Magee, and P. Oesch,
University of California, Santa Cruz; R. Bouwens, Leiden University; and the HUDF09 Team

Chapter 1 - Our Place in the Universe

CHAPTER INTRODUCTION

Imagine holding a grain of sand at arm’s length so that it covers a tiny piece of the sky at night. Now imagine pointing the world’s most powerful telescope at that tiny piece of sky and taking a picture. The picture above is what you would see. In this first chapter, you’ll learn about what the picture shows and what it means to us as human beings living on the planet we call Earth.

Activity

Set Up Your Personal Journal

Create a personal journal in which you can write, paste pictures, and more throughout this course. Ask whether your teacher prefers a written journal or an electronic journal (such as one using Google docs). Set  up your journal with your name, grade, school, and teacher’s name, so that it will be ready to go for future assignments. You should start each day’s work on a new page, clearly labeled with the date.

For your first entry, answer the following questions as best as you can. This will help both you and your teacher understand how much you already know. Don’t worry if you don’t know the answers — you’ll learn them as you progress through this book. However, please at least make a guess for each question, and show off your writing skills by writing clearly with good grammar and complete sentences.

  1. What is a planet?
  2. What is a solar system?
  3. What is a galaxy?
  4. What is the universe?
  5. Why is Earth round?
  6. What would you most like to learn about Earth or the universe during this course?
Show Teacher Notes

Day 1: You may not get past this opening page on the first day of class, and that’s OK. Use the day to:

  • Make sure your students are successfully accessing the electronic textbook.
  • Read the text and watch the video on this page.
  • Set up their journal and answer the first set of questions.
  • If you have extra time, you might ask students to discuss question 6 about what they most would like to learn about Earth or the universe, and see if any general themes come up.

For the Journal: The primary purpose of this first journal activity is just to get your students set up with their journals. The secondary purpose – embodied in the six questions (above) — is to give students a chance to show you what they do or do not already know. Notes:

  • Decide whether you want your students to keep a handwritten or electronic journal, and make sure they have access to whatever they need for that (e.g., a paper notebook for handwritten, or a Google doc that they can share with you for electronic).
  • For their answers to the six questions, use these as a sort of pre-assessment that will help you understand the level of background of each student; as stated in the student section above, we don’t expect students to already know all the answers. In terms of grading the journal entry, we recommend grading on effort, and providing plenty of guidance to students on their writing, especially in helping them learn to explain themselves clearly and to use good grammar and complete sentences.

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