The Cosmos

Videos for teaching astronomy

From the International Astronomical Union’s Newsletter of the Commission 46 on the Teaching of Astronomy (coauthor Jay M. Pasachoff was president of the Commission): Anja C. Andersen (Dark Cosmology Centre, Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen) notes the following resource that may be of interest to astronomy educators. “Studynova” is a project by Canadian Mitch Campbell. There, students can find hundreds of videos on the subjects of mathematics and physics. http://studynova.com/videos/ There are three topics in particular that are of interest to astronomy students. First, under “physics”, is a set of 48 videos on astrophysics. These are relevant for high school and introductory university students, and are an overview of common astrophysics topics (including stellar properties, HR diagrams, calculating distances, cosmology, etc). Second, also under “physics”, is a set of 23 videos called “Astrophysics extra”. These feature additional material for high school and introductory university students, such as calculating the mass of a black hole, rotation curves and lensing as evidence for dark matter. There are also videos on exoplanet detection techniques (Doppler method in more detail – estimating orbital radius, mass, surface temperature). Last is a set of 28 videos under “Astrobiology”. This is an introduction to astrobiology, and is at a more basic level (no mathematics). These feature topics such as the history of life on Earth, habitable zone, abiogenesis, panspermia, Urey Miller experiment, searching in our own solar system, exoplanets, SETI, aliens and UFOs. Another resource is the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures, featuring astronomers giving non-technical lectures on recent developments in astronomy, which are now available on their own YouTube Channel, at: http://www.youtube.com/SVAstronomyLectures/
The lectures were taped at Foothill College near San Francisco and co-sponsored by NASA’s Ames Research Center, the SETI Institute, and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. The speakers include coauthor, Alex Filippenko, talking about black holes.