StartingOut

One way to start your astronomy class is to link it to other areas of life or school. For example: (submitted by Zo Webster - August 18, 2010)
 * Astrobiology: What is life? How did life begin? Why do scientists look for life on other planets (especially since so many people think we have already been visited by aliens)? Why do we think water is so important that the mantra for missions to Mars is 'Follow the Water'? You could use this discussion to bring up the primordial soups, panspermia, superbugs. You can also talk about Titan - the only other planetary body in our solar system where it rains. You can talk about Europa and the Juno mission. Of course Mars! You could also use this to talk about the habitable zone and what sorts of factors might cause a planet to be more or less suitable.
 * Astronomy in product names: Ask your students to brainstorm astronomical related product names in categories like food, sportswear, automobiles, jewelry/watches, electronics, Harry Potter characters, etc. Ask why so many people would want to name their products after astronomical objects.
 * Show a beautiful astronomical image. Have students brainstorm nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs that this photo makes them think of. Then have class make a poem, or multiple poems, from the words generated. (Idea from a workshop.)
 * What do astronomers look like? Make your students draw - then show them some photos of astronomers - new and old. How many lab coats did they draw? How many bearded white men? For a full description - see Picture an Astronomer . This activity has links to biography sites that are old - but there is such a cute picture of me as a kid on this site! (Scienceface.org, NASA Career Opportunities, Women in Astronomy Compendium, I Was Wondering - possibly middle school, Women and Minorities in Physics, )

Some suggestions on materials you need for an astronomy class.
1) A good "backyard" telescope and astrocamera to make your own observations and pics. maybe $500 to $1500 there. 2) Computers to run imaging software 3) Imaging software--although a bunch of it is free for downloading such as Image J, Salsa J, J Helioviewer, or DS9 4) Planetarium software. ([|stellarium.org], [|Celestia]) 5) "Sunspotter" telescope ($350) 6) Solar tracker hemispheres 7) Lots of the little things that we always want to get our hands that cost about $5 to $25 but over a year we are talking real money.
 * Laptops for everyone and computer access in the classroom
 * Lenses, mirrors, optics bench accessories and ray boxes (behavior of light, telescope properties, refraction…)
 * Gas spectrum tubes, high voltage source, spectroscopes (best quality available)
 * Fantastic print resources (like those from Astronomical Society of the Pacific…)
 * Clear hemispheres and protractors (modeling solar positions during seasons)
 * A variety of Styrofoam balls and dowel rods as well as other crafty materials for models
 * Graphing calculators and probes for measuring light intensity (vernier.com)
 * Durable Starfinders, binoculars, red-filtered flash lights (night viewing)
 * Astronomer’s green laser (pointing at night)
 * A rich library of visual media (The Universe series from History Channel, Cosmos…)
 * A sunspotter, mailing tubes, materials for the photometry lab, spectrum tubes, really good telescope, convex and concave lenses, the Universe videos and a bicycle pump for bottle rockets are some things that I think are important.
 * Project STAR spectrometers (e.g Ward's $38 each) and holographic diffraction gratings or holographic diffraction sheets for overhead projector