The ASPIRE Lab is now one of the most innovative and interactive science education websites available on the Internet. You will find not only fun interactive labs, but well designed and produced curriculum content, created by teachers for teachers. The powerful combination of inquiry-based content, along with interactive, hands-on labs provides a powerful visualization tool for you and your students to use. Best of all, the ASPIRE Lab is free!

Ex 1: Saha Equation, Jeans Instability, Free-Fall Time Scale (.pdf)
Ex 2: Accretion to a Hydrostatic Core (.pdf)
Ex 3: taken from http://www.johnpratt.com/items/astronomy/exercises/hrquiz.html
Ex 4: Nuclear Time Scale, Energy Output by Nucleosynthesis (.pdf)
Ex 5: Slow Contraction Phase, Stellar Evolution (.pdf)
Ex 6: Mass-Luminosity Relation, Stellar Wind, Line Driven Winds (.pdf)
Ex 7: Supernova Maximum Light, Neutron Star Rotation, Neutron Star Blackbody Emission, Chandrasekhar Mass Limit (.pdf)
Ex 8: Band Filters, Saturn, Fluxes and Magnitudes (.pdf)
Ex 9: Hubble Space Telescope, The Light Curve of a Binary, Double-line Spectroscopic Binary (.pdf)
Ex 10: Newtonian Schwarzschild Radius, Keplers Laws, Exoplanet around Glise 581 (.pdf)

This OLogy activity challenges kids to match up cosmic photos with their descriptions in an interactive quiz. The activity begins by introducing kids to the Hubble Space Telescope through an astronomer at the museum who works with photos from the telescope. They are then asked to match eight telescope photos with their text descriptions. A Help screen is included with tips for completing the activity. Once kids have made their guesses, they can click a button to check their answers. They are prompted to try again if not all their answers are correct. Success is rewarded with a congratulatory message from the Hubble.

This OLogy reference list has 10 kid-friendly books on physics. A short description is given for each title, along with author name and publisher.

Study of physical effects in the vicinity of a black hole as the basis for understanding general relativity, astrophysics, and elements of cosmology. Extension to current developments in theory and observation. Energy and momentum in flat spacetime; the metric; curvature or spacetime near rotating and nonrotating centers of attraction; the Global Positioning System and its dependence on general relativity; trajectories and orbits of particles. Subject has online component and classroom lectures are replaced with online interactions: manipulation of visualization software, access to websites describing current research, electronic submission of homework, and structured online discussions between undergraduates and alumni and with instructors and graduate specialists in the topics covered.

The main scientific instrument on the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) is the Large Area Telescope (LAT). This interactive computer-based educational activity allows students in grades 11-14 and informal web users to see the results when gamma-ray photons of different energies and incident angles hit the LAT. The photons convert into electron-positron pairs which travel through 19 interleaved layers of silicon into the cesium-iodide calorimeter. Background information about GLAST and the LAT is also provided, which is part of the Virtual Visitor Center site for the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center.

Explore astrophysics through science visualization and animation. The Astrophysics Visualization Archive is a resource for visualizations (movies) that demonstrate astronomical or astrophysical phenomena. Choose from one of these categories: Solar System, Stars, Galaxies, and Universe.

Science Bulletins can be used in many ways depending on the availability of computers and amount of time available. It can become an integral part of your science curriculum or a supplement to your program. Students can visit the site for weekly science news updates or the site can be the basis for collaborative learning projects. This page provides suggestions for implementing Science Bulletins materials in your classroom.

Quantitative introduction to physics of the solar system, stars, interstellar medium, the Galaxy, and Universe, as determined from a variety of astronomical observations and models. Topics: planets, planet formation; stars, the Sun, "normal" stars, star formation; stellar evolution, supernovae, compact objects (white dwarfs, neutron stars, and black holes), plusars, binary X-ray sources; star clusters, globular and open clusters; interstellar medium, gas, dust, magnetic fields, cosmic rays; distance ladder; galaxies, normal and active galaxies, jets; gravitational lensing; large scaling structure; Newtonian cosmology, dynamical expansion and thermal history of the Universe; cosmic microwave background radiation; big-bang nucleosynthesis. No prior knowledge of astronomy necessary. Not usable as a restricted elective by physics majors.

This is the course to learn about the fourth state of matter. The plasma state dominates the visible universe, and is of increasing economic importance. Plasmas behave in lots of interesting and sometimes unexpected ways. Introduces plasma phenomena relevant to energy generation by controlled thermonuclear fusion and to astrophysics. Coulomb collisions and transport processes. Motion of charged particles in magnetic fields; plasma confinement schemes. MHD models; simple equilibrium and stability analysis. Two-fluid hydrodynamic plasma models; wave propagation in a magnetic field. Introduces kinetic theory; Vlasov plasma model; electron plasma waves and Landau damping; ion-acoustic waves; streaming instabilities. A subject description tailored to fit the background and interests of the attending students distributed shortly before and at the beginning of the subject. From the course home page: The course is intended only as a first plasma physics course, but includes critical concepts needed for a foundation for further study. A solid undergraduate background in classical physics, electromagnetic theory including Maxwell's equations, and mathematical familiarity with partial differential equations and complex analysis are prerequisites.

The plasma state dominates the visible universe, and is important in fields as diverse as Astrophysics and Controlled Fusion. Plasma is often referred to as "the fourth state of matter." This course introduces the study of the nature and behavior of plasma. A variety of models to describe plasma behavior are presented.

Most students will have an intuitive sense that kinetic energy depends on how fast something is moving (speed) and how massive it is (mass). (We use speed instead of velocity, because energy is a scalar, and independent of direction.) They know that it hurts more in dodge ball when the ball is thrown with more speed than when it is thrown with less speed. They also know that is hurts more to drop a bowling ball on their foot than it does to drop a tennis ball. Exactly how mass, speed and kinetic energy are related is the purpose of this lab. Which is more important in determining kinetic energy? mass or speed? or are they of the same importance?

See how Science Bulletins materials correlate with National Science Education Standards.

Science Bulletins is a video program that brings you the latest developments in the fields of astrophysics, Earth science, biodiversity and human biology and evolution through documentary feature stories about scientists in the field and regular brief research updates using scientific visualizations and imagery. In the exhibition halls of the American Museum of Natural History and other museums and science centers throughout the world, Science Bulletins presents Astro, Earth, Human, and Bio Bulletins as updating streams of high-definition video content and interactive media. On this Web site, Science Bulletins presents current videos and provides an archive of past stories, all with resource links, as well as educator resources and a guide for educators interested in using Science Bulletins in the classroom.

In 16.89/ESD.352 the students will first be asked to understand the key challenges in designing ground and space telescopes, the stakeholder structure and value flows, and the particular pros and cons of the proposed project. The first half of the class will concentrate on performing a thorough architectural analysis of the key astrophysical, engineering, human, budgetary and broader policy issues that are involved in this decision. This will require the students to carry out a qualitative and quantitative conceptual study during the first half of the semester and recommend a small set of promising architectures for further study at the Preliminary Design Review (PDR).Both lunar surface telescopes as well as orbital locations should be considered. The second half of the class will then pick 1-2 of the top-rated architectures for a lunar telescope facility and develop the concept in more detail and present the detailed design at the Critical Design Review (CDR). This should not only sketch out the science program, telescope architecture and design, but also the stakeholder relationships, a rough estimate of budget and timeline, and also clarify the role that human explorers could or should play during both deployment and servicing/operations of such a facility (if any).

Black holes and travel at nearly the speed of light: Visualization of the theory of relativity. This site offers online papers, images, movies and paper models. The website presents computer simulations that provide "virtual experiences."The images and movies are correctly computed within the framework of the theory of relativity. They are carefully explained in an intuitive, non-mathematical way.