What Goes on at the Observatories

Unit 5 – Observatories, Transmitters, & Sacred Places

Activity 3 – What Goes on at the Observatories

Materials & Setup

In Advance, Student Internet Research Assignment

• Assign Student Page “Surf the Net to Research the Haleakalā Observatories” (pp. 36-38) and Student Page “Research Instructions and Questions” (pp. 39-40) as homework.

Instructions

1) Ask one student to give a brief report on his or her research, then invite other students who researched the same facility to add details. Continue until you have covered all of the facilities. If there is time left at the end of class, begin a class discussion using the journal ideas listed below.

Journal Ideas

• Does knowing more about the research and work that is performed at the Haleakalā Observatories change your opinion about the proposal to relocate the broadcast facility to another location where radio frequency interference will not be a problem? Explain your response.
• Think of other ways that people might have understood or explained the phenomena being studied at the Haleakalā Observatories without the benefit of scientific inquiry and the instrumentation housed in the observatories. Describe one or more of these different ways of understanding the world.
• Describe at least one way in which you think the work being done at the Haleakalā Observatories will (or does) benefit people.

Assessment Tools

• Student Page “Research Instructions and Questions”
• Participation in class discussion

Media Resources

None.