Teaching Science with Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data

GriPhyN/iVDGL Education and Outreach meeting

March 1, 2002

Jordan Raddick The Johns Hopkins University

What is the SDSS?

• Project to map the night sky from 9th to 23rd magnitude

• Images of 100 million objects

• Spectra for 1 million galaxies and 100,000 quasars

continued

What is the SDSS?

• Goal: Create a 3-D map of the universe

Image courtesy Adrian Pope, JHU

Data

• Images– Magnitudes in 5 wavelengths– Near ultraviolet to infrared

• Spectra– Moderate resolution– 3800 to 9200

Angstroms– Survey measures 640

spectra at once

Before the SDSS

Star cluster Palomar 5

Star cluster Palomar 5

After the SDSS

Accessing the Data

• All data available to anyone, free of charge, on the SkyServer web site

• http://skyserver.sdss.org

• Point-and-click through the sky

• Summary of photometric information on each object

• Developed by Alex Szalay, JHU and Jim Gray, Bay Area Research Center

Tools - Navigate

• Information on single objects– Photometric and

spectroscopic

• Look up by object ID, position, spectral plate/fiber

• Correlations to data from other sky surveys

Tools – Object Explorer

• Search for all objects meeting given criteria

• Uses Microsoft Structured QueryLanguage (SQL)

• SQL tutorial on site

Tools - Query

Richards, et al., Astronomical Journal, 2001

Lauren Saks, freshman creative writing major, JHU

• SkyServer gives the public access to real astronomical research

Quasars project by Robert Sparks

The Power of SkyServer

• Interactive educational projects– Students use

real data– Groundbreaking

research in classroom

– Full lesson plans for teachers

Educational Projects

• For Kids • Basic

– Advanced middle school students– High school students – Curious adults

• Advanced– Advanced high school students– Introductory level college students – Amateur astronomers

Levels of Projects

• Flexibility – Projects can be done quickly or in-depth, depending

on teacher needs• Lessons make extensive use of SDSS data• Research Challenges

– Independent follow-up work on projects that interest students

• Teacher’s guide and sample responses for all projects– Password protected– Sample responses available on request to students

and others doing projects independently

continued

Key Features of Projects

• Recommended reading materials for teachers• Correlations to National education standards

– AAAS Project 2061 Benchmarks for Science Education

– NCTM Principles and Standards for School Mathematics

Key Features of Projects

Teacher’s Guides

• Teacher’s guides are available for all projects

• Correlations to national educational standards– AAAS Project 2061 Benchmarks for Science

Education– NCTM Principles and Standards for School

Mathematics

Example: Hubble Diagram

• 1929 – Edwin Hubble discovers expansion of universe

• Foundation of modern astronomy

• Students repeat discovery with SDSS data

continued

Example: Hubble Diagram

• Students calculaterelative distancesto galaxies

• Identify galaxiesfrom images

• Use severalmethods to finddistances

continued

Example: Hubble Diagram

• Find redshifts(velocities) from observed spectra

• Use sametemplates asSDSS scientists

continued

Example: Hubble Diagram

• Graph redshift vs. distance

• Straight line suggests universe is expanding

• Students asked about logic of argument

• Over 40,000 galaxies to choose from

continued

Example: Hubble Diagram

• Teachers’ Guide– Project goals– Knowledge required– Estimated time– Advice on leading

classes– Correlations to

educational standards

• Old Time Astronomy– Sketch celestial objects

• Scavenger Hunt

• Adopt a Galaxy

• The Constellation GameMooseris, the great moose of the sky. A constellation created by Jordan Raddick.

For Kids

• The Hubble Diagram

• Asteroids

• Spectral Types

• Colors in Astronomy

• Galaxy Classification

• Sky Surveys

Basic Projects

• Hubble Diagram• Colors in Astronomy• Spectral Types• H-R Diagram• Galaxies• Quasars• Sky Surveys• The Large Scale Structure of the Universe• Image Processing with SDSS Data

Advanced Projects

The SkyServer Sampler CD-ROM

• Background on SDSS

• Sample images and spectra

• Several sample lesson plans

• For free access to all data and lesson plans, visit http://skyserver.sdss.org

Want more information?

• Volunteer your classes to test projects

• http://skyserver.sdss.org

• http://www.sdss.org

• E-mail raddick@pha.jhu.edu or rsparks@fnal.gov