This is an optional project. If you complete this, your project grade will replace your lowest test grade.
Project Grades
The project can be a number of different things. My first idea was that you would take some aspect of the course and create some learning materials for this. For instance, say you wanted to look at force and motion. You could describe the content, find some good applets online and describe how to use them and create some questions to help other students learn this concept. You could also find some other project such as measuring the radius of the Earth or looking for comets or something. Feel free to submit ideas of projects to me if you want feedback.
Project Parameters
Your project must meet the following:
- You must submit a project proposal (via email) by June 28. In this proposal, basically describe what you are going to do for your project. You do not have to stick strictly to this plan, but it will give me a chance to give you initial feedback. If you do not submit a proposal, you can not submit a project.
- The project must be submitted in some electronic form. The project must be posted online. I can put it online for you. You can also choose to "save as html" in many programs.
- If you just do something trivial, you will not get a good grade. By trivial, I mean creating a presentation that just shows some pictures and re-describes stuff from the text.
More Ideas
- Write a short story that focuses on some key concept from class (as part of the plot).
- Collect some observational data: the location of the sun rise each morning, the phase of the moon (picture) over a month, the position of a planet over the course of a month.
- Repeat some experiment: Galileo's ball rolling experiment, measure the radius of the Earth, calculate the distance from the Earth to the Sun.
- Create a presentation or poster of something new, or not in the text.
- Create a report describing how to spend $6,000 on a astronomy lab (with telescope)
- Create some educational material for 1st - 4th graders
- Go to a group of kids (or adults) and give a presentation, then write a report about it.