Evolving Universe Overview
The Evolving Universe materials
are part of the Adaptive Curriculum Enhancement (ACE) program
developed by Mid-continent
Research for Education and Learning (McREL). These materials
have been adapted from the Genesis
Cosmic Chemistry: Cosmogony module for use by visually
impaired students.
Cosmologists study the present universe;
cosmogonists study the origin of the universe. Observations
about our present universe not only allow us to make predictions
about the future, but also they provide clues to events that
happened long ago, when the evolution of the cosmos began.
Throughout this Evolving Universe module, students act as
scientists as they study tactile models of specific features
of the present universe. They will develop an understanding
of the difficulties of conducting science on very large time
and distance scales by indirect observation and inference.
Students involved in the Evolving Universe classroom activities
use the strategy of working backward from contemporary models
of the universe to envision a reasonable initial state of
the cosmos.
The activities in Evolving Universe are
organized using a learning cycle and are intended to be used
sequentially in the order they are presented, but they have
been designed to be self-contained activities that could be
used to emphasize specific scientific concepts or to address
specific National Science Education Standards. ACE learning
Spongy
Universe
In the first part of the “Spongy
Universe” engagement activity, students develop
observation and inference skills using a sponge that models
the universe. The second part of the activity emphasizes how
distance affects perspective. In the culminating session,
they must then decide whether the precepts of the Standard
Cosmological Model that describe the universe as being homogenous
and isotropic are valid.
Our
Dynamic Universe
In “Our Dynamic Universe,”
students explore two more basic precepts of the Standard Cosmological
Model—our expanding universe and gravitational effects
in the universe today. Students experience the Doppler Effect,
a simple technique that has been a mainstay of cosmological
science since the early part of the 20th century. They learn
that the same kinds of changes in wave frequency that cause
changes in the pitch of sound can give us clues to what is
happening in our dynamic universe. The observation of red
and blue Doppler shifts in stars and other galactic objects
leads very naturally into a discussion of the expansion of
the universe and the gravitational force that oppose this
expansion.
Tracing
Origins Thought Experiments
This Tracing Origins concept development activity is actually
a series of three “Thought Experiments.”
- Tracing
the Origins of Pizza Ingredients
This activity introduces students to thought experiment techniques
that scientists use when it is not possible to actually conduct
real experiments with real equipment. Students are encouraged
to act both as cosmologists and cosmogonists as they make
observations regarding the structure of a pizza and trace
the origins of the pizza ingredients back to atoms, the building
blocks of matter. But atoms have their own building blocks—protons,
neutrons, and electrons.
- Fundamentals
of Our Universe
In this activity, students will continue concept development
as they discover the combinations of “up” and
“down” quarks, the fundamental particles that
form protons and neutrons. Quarks and electrons may have been
among the first stable particles formed in the early universe.
In the final session of this activity, we pose the question,
“If electrons exist as free particles in the universe
today, why aren’t quarks free particles today?”
This will lead into a discussion of the energy (temperature)
changes that have occurred from the beginning of the cosmos
until now.
- Tracing
the Origins of Our Universe
In this culminating concept expansion activity, students combine
their experiences in inference and tracing origins and their
knowledge of fundamental particles to trace the quarks and
electrons backwards in time to discover what important role
they may have played in those early cosmic periods.
When students have
completed this series of Evolving Universe activities, they
will have had modeling and inference experiences relating
to the following basic precepts of the Standard Cosmological
Model. |
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accountability report