At-Home Activities

Make a list of things that happen outside your home for which you receive indirect evidence when you are inside your home. For example, you hear your windows rattle when the wind outside is strong.

If you have access to old news magazines, newspapers, or old science journals such as Discover, Popular Mechanics, Popular Science, skim through them for articles that refer to stars, supernovas, red giants, neutron stars and black holes.

Ask friends and family members about their views on the origin of the planets. Do they think there are other planets like Earth in the universe?

You might find it interesting to look at examples of space art in books that were published before 1969 (the year that humans landed on the Moon). Search your school or public library for examples. How do the images compare with more modern space art?

Repeat this activity at home for your family. Explain to them the model of the expanding universe.

You can illustrate changes in wavelength in your own bathtub:

1. Run water into your bathtub and let the water sit until it is completely still. Fill an eyedropper with water and hold it stationary over the water. Release several drops of water onto the surface of the bath water. (You should observe the effect that is illustrated in Figure 2, page 476.)
2. Now move the eyedropper at a very slow, constant speed toward one end of the tub, releasing several drops of water in succession. The speed at which you move the eyedropper has to be less than the speed at which the ripples spread out across the water. (You should now observe the effect that is illustrated in Figure 3, page 476.)

Survey friends and family members about their views of how the universe came into being.

The Chapter Review (pp.484-485) in your textbook lists all the Key Expectations you have covered in the chapter and identifies the specific lessons in which the knowledge and skills have been developed.

You can use the Key Expectations list to help you create a personal study guide in preparation for an end-of-chapter test:

1. Copy down the list of learning expectations from your textbook.
2. For each learning expectation, locate the appropriate lesson(s) in the unit where the expectation was covered. These are identified in parentheses at the end of each expectation (e.g., 15.2).
3. Flip to the appropriate lesson(s) for each expectation and make study notes of the key ideas or skills you learned.