An Astronomy/Astrophysics lesson plan

The task for project 2 is to adapt one of the online resources/activities we’ve encountered into a lesson plan introducing a particular concept/topic in Astronomy and Astrophysics theory to high school students. As a reminder of the online resources one can base a lesson plan around, we’ve seen:

Galaxy Zoo and other astronomy related Zooniverse projects.
MESA’s online portal allowing anyone to generate models of stars.
LIGO’s (and the Penn State Gravity Group’s website) educational resources and activities.
cosmoEJS cosmological model simulator (from Unit 13)
Sloan Digital Sky Survey from Unit 10 (which includes several projects from stellar spectra to HR diagrams to cosmology, in addition to the galaxies activity you did.)
WEBDA star cluster data

NOTE: You do not need to create a lesson plan from scratch; you can use an existing resource or activity as a starting point – but you must make it clear what you created and what is taken/adapted from the existing material. You will also need to add the context material (see below). You must cite fully everything you adapt and all sources of information you used in preparing the plan.

This lesson plan should be something that you would potentially be able to use in your own classroom, and the exact topic and format of the plan should be guided by that consideration. For that reason, I will not impose many specific guidelines, other than the lesson plan should include learning objectives/outcomes with a means to assess them, a general introduction and motivation, and if appropriate some historical context.

In addition to the lesson plan, you will also provide a rubric which you would like us to use to grade it. It can be an existing rubric that, for example, you district uses, and you can adapt it if necessary to better fit the lesson plan you come up with. If you do not provide the rubric, your project will not be graded.