COURSE TITLE ASTRONOMY

COMPUTER TITLE ASTRONOMY

COMPUTER CODE SCZ502

GRADE LEVEL 10-12

LENGTH OF COURSE 18-36 weeks

Laboratory Requirement: Students who take this course spend a minimum of 30% of their time engaged in laboratory exercises.

Major Concepts/Content: Astronomy is designed to be an elective course for students with a special interest and high motivation for astronomy. Information is presented in an integrated approach with science as inquiry, science & technology, science & social perspectives, and the history & nature of science. The course integrates unifying science concepts and processes of systems, order & organization, evidence, models & explanation, change, consistency & equilibrium; and form & function.

Scientific inquiry and understanding about inquiry are emphasized through practical implications and meaningful applications. Topics students study include motions of the moon, planets, sun, galaxies; observations utilizing sight, telescopes, radio; structures of the solar system, galaxy, stars, and the universe; and processes including life cycle mass, temperature, pressure, and age.

Major Instructional Activities: Based on the philosophy that scientific knowledge is best acquired through inquiry, the course uses a variety of techniques to introduce, stimulate, explore, and reinforce major scientific concepts, theories, principles, and skills.

Instructional activities are staged in appropriate settings. They include laboratories, classrooms, forms of technology, and field studies. Teaching strategies include investigations, demonstrations, discussions, and hands-on/minds-on experiences.

Major Evaluation Techniques: All aspects (e.g., ability to inquire, scientific understanding of the natural world, and understanding of the nature and utility of science) of progress in science are measured using multiple methods such as individual and group performances, projects, interviews, reports, student-generated works, and/or conventional testing.

Essential Objectives: Upon completion of Astronomy, students should be able to:

• Engage in full and partial scientific inquiries to design, conduct, and communicate scientific investigations to explore ideas about the natural world.
• Use scientific inquiry to design and conduct scientific investigations to meet a human need, make a decision, solve a human problem, or develop a product.
• Recognize and describe the interrelationship between science and technology.
• Apply the tools of technology (e.g., computers) in scientific endeavors.
• Identify qualities inherent in scientific behavior (e.g., reasoning, insight, energy, skill, and creativity).
• Discuss contributions of men and women of various social and ethnic backgrounds to science and technology.
• Apply science concepts to make decisions (weighing risks and benefits) about students' personal health and well-being.
• Relate mass, temperature, age, and pressure to cycles.
• Describe the location and the relation among planets, stars, and galaxy.
• Relate location to the planet orbit period.