Review for:sun today

posted: on June 3, 2007 at 12:13AM

astronomy

sun and sunspots

For my students to see how the same object could look so different in different "colors" or wavelengths. I also wanted to prep them for looking through a solar telescope to see sunspots.

Honors or Advanced, Intro or Regular, Remedial

I used the resource in terms of class preparation to make sure that there were going to be some sunspot activity (it varies and we are in a sunspot low). My students got a feel going in for how many sunspots they were likely to see through our solar telescope and we were able to better interpret the image that we got.

Provides visualization or animation, Increases graphing skills, Provides access to data sets, Provides access to remote instrumentation, Increases data collection & analysis skills, Provides additional content, Increases student engagement and motivation

It is fascinating to see current images of the sun and realize how different it looks in different wavelengths. We don't have the equipment to reproduce this. Most schools don't even have solar telescopes much less the different filters that these satellites have. We couldn't get this data by ourselves. I think students are pretty impressed with how variable the sun is -- especially if you do the project long term.

Not all images are taken everyday, so it is a bit misleading if you don't pay attention to the dates. The data is abstract for students so prepping them for what they are really looking at is essential.