NSTA Web Seminar

Since I was unable to attend the web seminar on the announced day, I am doing a post seminar assignment for Dr. Cathy Ezrailson. Through this presentation, I learned that stars are made up of about 80 percent of Hydrogen, about 30 percent of Helium, and about 2 percent of a variety of different types of metals. By looking at the models presented through out the presentation, we can see that stars are a hot and glowing balls of gas. We are also trying to find an equilibrium between gravity and energy. As the pressure if trying to force its way out, the gravity is trying to force its way in hence we are trying to discover a balance or a state of equilibrium. As Dr. Ezrailson said during the presentation, when we are thinking about how stars are formed, we should consider the mass of the initial gas, the temperature, and the speed. I learned that the life and death of a star is dependent on whether how much gas life they have and how quickly they use their gas through out their life span. There are also different ways to classify stars. We can classify stars by their temperature, composition, and brightness (low or high). If we were wondering how to figure out the energy we can receive from light, we could use a formula to find out a photons energy and frequency. The formula is E=hv, which is very confusing to me. I do not understand the scientific terms that allow me to go further into that formula. It would be interesting to see how the formula plays out and how I could incorporate it into my classroom, and teach my students about light energy and how we can get it from the stars. I also found it very interesting how planets form around the stars, this would also be an interesting topic of discussion for an elementary classroom. We could eventually have the students make their own solar system, and as we slowly build we can talk about the f ormations and other aspects of planets and stars.