Last December, the course’s instructor and I sat down to write the final exam. And that’s make it a great opportunity for peer instruction and follow-up summative assessment. It’s not what you’d expect, the tail wagging the dog. A dust trail also interacts gravitationally with the Sun, causing it to curl out behind the ion tail.) Teaching and learning The ion tail is strongly influenced by the solar wind – it’s the one blown directly away from the Sun. That’s because the tail is blown outward by the solar wind so that the tail of a comet always points away from the Sun. You may think the comet’s tail streams out behind like the exhaust trail (the contrail) of an airplane but once the comet rounds the Sun, the tail swings around ahead of the comet. Well, another interesting thing, that is. That’s when something interesting happens. The tail grows larger and larger, streaming out behind the comet until it rounds the Sun and begins to head back out into the Solar System. The ice turns to gas which creates a sometimes-spectacular tail. The comet is orbiting clockwise in this diagram so the yellow dust tail trails slightly behind the blue ion tail.Īs comets approach the Sun, like Comet Halley does every 76 years, the comet’s nucleus warms up. The comets we celebrate, like Comet Halley, travel along highly-elongated, elliptical orbits that extend from the hot, intense region near the Sun to the cold, outer-regions of the Solar System.Ī comet's tails point away from the Sun. Comets and their tailsĬomets are dusty snowballs of water ice and other material left over from the formation of the Solar System. Let me share with you an example from an introductory, general-ed “Astro 101” astronomy course. There are quicker, easier analyses and subsequent modifications of materials that, in my opinion, qualify as evidence-based teaching. Does a typical university instructor have the time or motivation? Not likely. It’s a daunting phrase, though, “evidence-based teaching and learning.” It sounds like I have to find original research in a peer-reviewed article, read and assimilate the academic prose, and find a way to apply that in my classroom. We often hear about “evidence-based teaching and learning.” In fact, it’s a pillar of the approach to course development and transformation that we follow in the Carl Wieman Science Education Initiative. Comet McNaught wow'd observers in the Southern Hemisphere in 2007.
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