Teacher Academy


Creating Access to World Class Science and Engineering for K-12 Teachers and Students

BCCP Homepage Academy Activity Instructors For Students For Teachers For Berkeley Lab Staff Facilities Center for Science and Engineering Education Academy Homepage
		Dark Energy

		Dark Energy Experiments – Alex Kim Dr. Kim discussed the scientific motivation, history, and current status of the Supernova Acceleration Probe (SNAP) telescope. It is a space telescope with wide-field imaging in optical to near-infrared wavelengths. It has two types of spectrographs: one for following up supernovae and one to be used for a third probe of dark energy, baryon acoustic oscillations. SNAP will study the dark energy that causes the accelerating expansion of the universe by using supernovae to measure the expansion. Another powerful probe is to use the changing of the shapes of galaxies caused by the bending of light by foreground energy perturbations. Dr. Kim also outlined how SNAP has evolved into the Joint Dark Energy Mission (JDEM). Powerpoint Lecture Video

		Hands On Cal Teach Group Investigation - Infrared Spectroscopy with Kibeum Ryoo Kibeum Ryoo demonstrates how to measure temperature of melting ice cubes (simulated stars) with an infrared thermometer An experiment using an infrared thermometer that simulated Infrared Spectroscopy illustrated a fundamental concept of black body radiation. In this activity, students use an Infrared thermometer to simulate how infrared telescopes determine the temperature of stars. Ice cubes (indicating stars) and were placed on trays lined with grid paper (indicating space). By measuring the temperature of the ice and each square of grid on the tray, students could plot a 3D surface diagram in Microsoft Excel. Infrared Spectroscopy PDF Black body refers to an object or body of mass which absorbs all radiation incident upon it and re-radiates characteristic energy of itself. Radiations are mostly electromagnetic waves. Stars are the best example of blackbody radiation. In the early universe, blackbodies that radiated electromagnetic waves still exist in form of microwaves today. The cosmic microwave background we see in every direction is relic radiation from The Big Bang. Current technology applies the fundamental idea of detecting blackbody radiation to infrared telescopes. The Spitzer telescope is an example of IR (infrared) telescope that receives infrared waves from blackbodies (usually stars), and converts received thermal data into colors and creates an image from the data. Watch Video on YouTube
		Minds On Q & A with George Smoot Video
		Math Activity It is reasonable to assume that the r-process in the supernova(s) that produced the stuff of our solar system produced equal amounts of Uranium 235 and 238 isotopes. Using the abundance of these isotopes, their half lives and the radioactive decay law calculate how long ago the supernova exploded. Post your work on a flip chart post. Use the info on the internet in any way. Cyber Reflections Students and Teachers Summarize Learning using Facebook and Inspiration Software
		21st Century Cosmology Astronomy Particle Physics Nuclear Science Mt. Diablo Field Trip Dark Matter The Large Hadron Collider and the Higgs Particle Cal Teach Stations Final Day: Student presentations Workshop Homepage