CAST 2017: Astronomy Labs Using Real Data

I’ll be presenting the same thing twice at CAST 2017!  Learn how actual astronomical data products from Caltech, NASA, and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey can be used for inquiry-based investigations to cover astronomy 101 topics so that students can have authentic research experiences right in the classroom. The session will focus on using web-based data tools from IPAC’s Infrared Science Archive (IRSA) and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) for doing investigations such as creating a color-magnitude diagram for star clusters and creating three-color astronomical images using actual data. Teachers will learn how to implement the demonstrated lab activities in their own classrooms and how to make their own investigations to teach topics about stars and galaxies in astronomy courses at the secondary level. The activities provided all use only a web browser with no extra software required and all resources are freely available to use for everyone.

The presentation is available here as a Google Slides Presentation: https://goo.gl/AhFVis

The lab instructions are available here as a Google Doc: https://goo.gl/K28EvC

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