HOU TRA Conference, June 23-28, 2003

Sponsored by Hands-On Universe (HOU), with funding from the National Science Foundation

Host Institution and Lodging Information:

University of Chicago Yerkes Observatory, 373 West Geneva St., Williams Bay, WI 53191

George Williams Campus of Aurora University, Williams Bay, WI  53191

HOU Teacher Resource Agents (TRAs), staff, and guests will be staying at George Williams Campus of Aurora University. 

Details about getting to Williams Bay and George Williams.

Additional Lodging is available at Lake Lawn Lodge.   Please call the reservation department at
800-338-5253 with a credit card to reserve the room and indicate the Hands-On Universe group.

Conference Agenda - Click here.

Conference Topics Include...

TRAs, please send me links and projects/lessons/activities that support your presentations and/or that you would like to share with each other.  Send to  vivian@yerkes.uchicago.edu any time before, during or after the conference.

Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and Sky Server.  HOU Teachers have been fans of SDSS since 1995 when Don York gave us annual updates of the progress of this NSF project at our annual workshops at the Adler Planetarium.  This year we are excited to learn that Rich Kron is the newly named Director of Sloan Digital Sky Survey.  Our HOU TRA Conference of 2003 at Yerkes Observatory features many projects that HOU teachers can do with their students using HOU-IP software with downloaded .fts images from SDSS and by importing spectra data to Graphical Analysis.   Our SDSS guest for 2003 is Web Content Designer, Jordan Raddick.  Jordan will team up with Kyle Cudworth to present how to create H-R Diagrams of star clusters with students analyzing the data directly.  One special cluster and data will be Pal 5. We will compare data from SDSS with data from other telescopes, including the Yerkes 24 inch.

H-R Diagram of star cluster, Pal 5.  Jordan Raddick will teach us how to download fts images from the SDSS Sky Server, then analyze these imaegs with HOU-IP to create H-R Diagrams.  We will use the star cluster Pal 5 to illustrate.

Active Galactic Nuclei.  Kate Meredith will share a unit of study she developed to teach about the role of spectroscopy in astronomy and give students an opportunity to do research.  Data sources are from SDSS.

The Expanding Universe: Redshift Lab.  Kevin McCarron will show how he uses the SDSS to allow students to discover the expanding Universe with evidence of redshift and apparent size of galaxies. 

Northwestern's Collaboratory and NEXUS. 

Bonnie Thurber and Harlan DeVore will explain how to use The Collaboratory to build environments for HOU projects.  Then Jordan, Harlan,  Bonnie and Carl will share their ideas for using Nexus to collaborate on SDSS student projects.

Vivian Hoette will introduce Observing Club pages built with the NEXUS templates. 

Edward Emerson Barnard

Presented by Frank Mills.  Book Talk:  The Immortal Fire Within by William Sheehan. Frank Mills and Vivian Hoette have taken images of Barnard's Star using the Yerkes 24 inch telescope periodically since the spring of 2000.  See on-line movies of the motion of Barnard's Star, made with these images.

Building a Color Magnitude H-R Diagram of Star Clusters

Kyle Cudworth will share the science and the techniques for using images from our telescopes and Hands-On Universe Image Processing (HOU-IP) software.  We will use these techniques on images that we will take during the conference.  Once we have an H-R Diagram, what does this tell us about the cluster?

Asteroids: Science Fiction to Fact!

Hughes Pack will share with you the wacky way he introduces the study of asteroids to his students with the use of the action movie "Armageddon" starring Bruce Willis, in combination with the National Geographic video "Asteroids - Deadly Impact". 

HOU Asteroids Research Project

Hughes Pack,  Tim Spuck (and maybe Viv too) will share the latest in our ventures in the Asteroid Research Project HOU Web-based Asteroid Research Project using recent images from the
Bell-Labs Deep Lens Survey.  Participants will learn how to get and inspect images, find coordinates, and check the Minor Planet Center.