Projects

1
Projects

• Astro 18
• Planets and Planetary Systems, UCSC
• April 21st, 2009

2
Schedule for next couple of weeks

• Today Launch for Class Projects
• Thurs April 23 Solar System Formation (Stefano)
• Tues April 28 Extrasolar Planets (Stefano)
• Wed April 29 Review session for mid-term
• Thurs April 30 Mid-term exam
• Tues May 5 Planetary Geology of the
  Terrestrial Planets

3
Schedule for next couple of weeks

• Today Launch for Class Projects
• Thurs April 23 Solar System Formation (Stefano)
• Tues April 28 Extrasolar Planets (Stefano)
• Wed April 29 Review session for mid-term
• Thurs April 30 Mid-term exam
• Tues May 5 Planetary Geology of the
  Terrestrial Planets

4
Homework assignments due...

• Thurs April 23 Homework assign.
• Tues April 28 Project stuff
• Thurs April 30 Mid-term
• Tues May 5 Project stuff
• Thurs May 7 Homework assign.

5
Why projects?

• Reading, homework, lectures content
• What we know about our Solar System and others,
  and the scientific tools used to discover this
  knowledge
• Class Projects enterprise of science
• The way we really do science starting with
  hunches, making guesses, making many mistakes,
  going off on blind roads before hitting on one
  that seems to be going in the right direction
• You will choose a general topic. Then you will
  formulate your own specific questions about the
  topic, and figure out a strategy for answering
  them
• We will provide structure via milestones along
  the way, so you wont get lost

6
Projects Getting started

• Today Brainstorming about potential topics
• Today Topic selection and group formation
• Today First meeting of your group (it will meet
  weekly thereafter)
• Weekly e-mails to us from each of you how are
  things going?
• Final project outcomes last two weeks of class
• Presentation in class
• Written report

7
Topics chosen in the past (just a taste of whats
possible)

• Is there life elsewhere in the universe?
• Are there habitable zones in other Solar Systems?
  How would we find them?
• Whats known about life in extreme environments?
  Possible life on the icy moons of Jupiter and
  Saturn
• The Hazard from Outer Space Killer asteroids
  and comets
• Did an asteroid kill the dinosaurs? What is the
  evidence?
• Should we worry about other asteroids crashing
  into us?
• Solar System formation
• Whats can we learn about history of our own
  Solar System from observations of other solar
  systems?
• Early history of solar systems migration of
  giant planets

8
Past topics, continued

• Climate
• Global warming on Earth Whats the evidence? Are
  people causing warming? How are predictions
  made?
• Our Nearest Neighbor Planets Were Mars and Venus
  more hospitable in the past?
• Future space technology for solar system
  exploration
• Nuclear Powered Spacecraft and/or Solar Sails
• Solar System exploration
• People voyaging to Mars or the Moon what are the
  benefits? how would you get people there? how
  dangerous is it? why not just send robots?
• Moons of outer planets
• Icy moons comparative geology, internal
  structure, is there life?
• Titan or Io

9
First task today

• Brainstorm about potential project topics
• How to brainstorm
• One person serves as scribe
• Everyone suggests ideas
• Scribe writes each one down
• No criticisms allowed! Just put all the ideas
  down
• Later youll decide which questions are most
  important, most interesting, etc. DONT do that
  now.
• Split into groups of 2 or 3 (your nearest
  neighbors?)
• Spend 15 minutes brainstorming about project
  topics
• Toss around as many questions as you can, write
  them down
• What are you curious about?

10
Brainstorming, continued

• Main point of brainstorming is to build on each
  others ideas
• Keeping the discussion positive (no criticisms
  allowed) encourages creativity.
• Nobody should feel turned off or discouraged
• A generally useful method in brainstorming, the
  group can actually be more creative than its
  component individuals
• Method used in businesses, arts, as well as
  science

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When 15 minutes have passed, well try to
categorize the topics

• Make groupings of related topics
• Write them on board or on sign-up sheets
• Ask each of you to sign up for your first choice
• Include your name and email address
• Form groups for each topic, get together in class

12
Next task today in your groups

• What questions can you ask (and later answer)
  about your topic?
• Get together in your groups
• Brainstorm a list of all the possible questions
  you can ask about your chosen topic

13
Example of brainstorming list for Pluto - an
imaginary project

• Why is Pluto so small?
• What is Pluto made of? How do we know?
• How come Plutos orbit is so elliptical?
• Did Pluto used to be an asteroid? How do we
  know?
• Are there other Plutos?
• Does Pluto look like the Moon, with lots of
  craters?
• Does Pluto have an atmosphere?
• What could we learn from sending a spacecraft to
  Pluto and Charon?
• How long would it take to get there? Could it go
  into orbit there?
• Does Pluto have seasons? What are they like?
• Could we change Plutos orbit into a circle if we
  wanted to?

14
Next task each group work on narrowing down
their questions

• Think about which of your questions are most
  interesting or important
• Think about how you would address each one
• Using these criteria, narrow down your list of
  questions to 4 - 6
• Take 15 minutes now
• Hand in your list at end of class today (be sure
  to keep copies for yourselves!)

15
By Tuesday April 28th (1 week)

• Each group look into their 4-6 questions enough
  to get an idea
• Does each question still make sense?
• Flesh it out a bit more use reference books (in
  McHenry Library), websites (links at bottom of
  our class web page)
• Why is each question important?
• How are they related to each other?
• What resources are available to address each
  question
• Textbooks or reference books? Articles in
  magazines such as Science or Scientific American
  or Sky and Telescope? Websites? Journal
  articles?
• Which of the group members is most interested in
  which questions, once you know a bit more about
  them?
• Each group member sign up to address 1 or 2
  questions
• Put Astro 18 in subject line, send to
  max_at_ucolick.org and to smeschia_at_ucolick.org

16
By Tuesday May 5th (2 weeks)

• (Group) Together write a 1 - 2 page summary of
  what your project is
• what are your four questions
• why are they each important (one by one)
• how are they related to each other
• what methods might you use to address them
• Books? Articles in magazines such as Science or
  Scientific American? Websites? Journal articles?
• what help can Stefano and I give you
• Put Astro 18 in subject line, send to
  max_at_ucolick.org and to smeschia_at_ucolick.org

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By Tuesday May 5th, contd

• From each individual (each of you) email to me
• A short email giving me feedback on how your
  group is going did everyone participate in your
  brainstorming session, did you feel included or
  left out, did you enjoy it?
• Is someone dominating the group too much?
• Are you finding the work interesting? Heres a
  place to ask advice about sources, etc.
• Ill ask you to do this each week, for a while at
  least
• Put Astro 18 in subject line, send to
  max_at_ucolick.org and to smeschia_at_ucolick.org

18
Future project tasks (more details to come)
Preliminary exploration

• First find at least 2 meaty websites, 3
  informative books or book chapters, and 2 good
  articles in magazines or journals about your
  chosen questions
• Skim them to see if they are going to be useful
  (some wont be) take notes of what is
  interesting
• Use them to put together list of other
  potentially useful books and web sites (its like
  following a trail ....), see if these are useful
• Get together and compare notes, tell each other
  what youve found
• Discuss what new questions have arisen, and ask
  whether any seem interesting enough to pursue

19
See you on April 30th

• If you have questions between now and then,
  contact Stefano (smeschia_at_ucolick.org)
• Ill be reading email from the East Coast, but I
  may not be able to respond right away