Background: Dataset skills are used in STEM fields from astronomy to zoology. Few fields explicitly teach students the skills to analyze datasets, and yet the increasing push for authentic science implies these skills should be taught. Purpose: The overarching motivation of this work is to understand authentic science learning of STEM dataset…

An interactive activity to teach the hot Carbon, Nitrogen and Oxygen (HCNO) cycle is proposed. Justification for why the HCNO cycle is important is included via an example of x-ray bursts. The activity allows teaching and demonstration of half-life, nuclear isotopes, nuclear reactions, protons and a-particles, and catalytic processes. Whilst the…

Teaching cosmology at the undergraduate or high school level requires simplifications and analogies, and inevitably brings the teacher into contact with at least one of the pedagogical interpretations of the expanding Universe. The by far most popular interpretation holds that galaxies in an expanding Universe are stationary, while space itself…

An introductory Astronomy survey course is often taken to satisfy a college graduation requirement for non-science majors at colleges around the United States. In this course, material that can be broadly categorized into topics related to "the sky", "the Solar System", "the Galaxy", and "cosmology" is…

We present a new teaching and outreach activity based around the construction of a three-dimensional chart of isotopes using LEGO® bricks. The activity, "binding blocks", demonstrates nuclear and astrophysical processes through a seven-meter chart of all nuclear isotopes, built from over 26000 LEGO® bricks. It integrates A-Level and GCSE…

This paper describes a series of activities in which students investigate and use the Ptolemaic, Copernican, and Tychonic models of planetary motion. The activities guide students through using open source software to discover important observational facts, learn the necessary vocabulary, understand the fundamental properties of different…

College and university general education (GE) classes are designed to broaden the understanding of all college and university students in areas outside their major interest. However, most GE classes are lecture type and do not facilitate hands-on experimental or observational activities related to the specific subject matter. Utilizing astronomy…

This paper presents a laboratory exercise used to teach principal components analysis (PCA) as a means of surface zonation. The lab was built around abundance data for 16 oxides and elements collected by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit in Gusev Crater between Sol 14 and Sol 470. Students used PCA to reduce 15 of these into 3 components, which,…

The idea of sending students and the general public on a walk through a scale model of the solar system in an attempt to instill an appreciation of the relative scales of the sizes of the objects compared to the immense distances between them is certainly not new. A good number of such models exist, including one on the National Mall in…

The precession rate of the Earth-Moon system by the gravitational influence of the Sun is derived. Attention is focussed on a physically transparent but complete presentation accessible to first- or second-year physics students. Both a shortcut and a full analysis are given, which allows the inclusion of this material as an example of the physics…

By means of a simple device, made by students themselves, the movements of the Sun and the Moon can be studied at different latitudes. Using this device, it is easy to explain phenomena such as the midnight Sun, zenith pass and why the Moon "smiles". In this article, we show various photos of the Sun's movements, alongside their simulations on the…

This article describes a paper-and-pencil construction to determine and graphically depict with reasonable accuracy the times and azimuths of sunrise and sunset on any day of the year at any location on Earth. The construction requires, as input, a date (or the sun's declination) and the latitude and longitude of the location in question, and one…

Describes science activities which have been successful with nonscience majors. Each activity requires students to make observations, record the data gathered, interpret data, and prepare a written report. Subject areas include motion of stars, sunspots, lunar orbits, sunset points, meteor showers, and sun shadows. (JN)