Resources especially for teachers

Helpful links and extra stuff for teachers

What you never knew, but wish you did

The Newton Project http://www.newtonproject.ic.ac.uk/index.html
Interesting facts about Isaac Newton
Bad Astronomy http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/misc/index.html
This is a good place to look for information on all of the bad information out there.

Lesson Plans & Instructor help

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Astronomy applets http://astro.unl.edu/ A nice set of applets to use to explain and demonstrate astronomy concepts. All are downloadable and useable off-line.
Science@NASA http://science.hq.nasa.gov/ The public connection to everything NASA does. This is the main NASA site: NASA Home http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html
NASA Education Support Network http://science.hq.nasa.gov/research/ecosystem.htm Educational resources, workshops, facilitators. See list of regions and Broker/Facilitators. Another list HERE
NOTE: NASA has regional Education Resource Centers. Do a search for ERC at the NASA Home site to bring up a list. There doesn't seem to be a central web site for these.
Astronomical Databases & Images HERE
Goals for Astronomy 101 http://www.aas.org/education/aasprojects/workshop101.html Astronomy workshop results from Astronomical Society of the Pacific and a website list for educators from ASP http://www.astrosociety.org/education/resources/educsites.html
ehelper.com http://www.edhelper.com/
Mostly elementary through middle school. All subject areas.
DLESE - Digital Library for Earth Systems Education http://www.dlese.org/dds/index.jsp Look for lessons, curriculum, courses, etc. here.
American Astronomical Society http://www.aas.org/education/ AAS education department
Washington State University Astronomy Dept. http://www.astro.washington.edu/labs/clearinghouse/index.html A great resource for lecture notes, images, activities, and more. Wouldn't it be nice if everybody's astronomy department was this organized?
National Institute for Science Education http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/nise/cl1/ Aimed a college level education.
Celestia http://shatters.net/celestia/.You NEED this. Celestia is FREE software that allows you to navigate through the solar system and the rest of space. Works very well, but needs a high power machine. MOTHERLODE http://www.celestiamotherlode.net/ has many add-ons and free lesson plans developed by other teachers and the Celestia developers. There is a users discussion group here http://shatters.net/forum/.
Astronomy Education Resources from Cornell U. http://astro.cornell.edu/outreach.html A fully searchable data base of activities, lesson plans, etc.
The Science Mission Directorate Space Science Education Resource Directory http://teachspacescience.org/cgi-bin/ssrtop.plex a convenient way to find NASA space science products for use in classrooms, science museums, planetariums, and other settings.
Astronomy/Planets for Kids http://www.planetsforkids.org/ Kid friendly site about planets.
Astronomy Demonstrations Here is a list of websites with demonstrations to help with understanding of concepts in astronomy. No JAVA stuff here. These are all things you can actually do! Unfortunately what is here is not very extensive. I know some great stuff is being done out there, but there doesn't seem to be web resources or books for it - yet.

Study Resource http://studyres.com/catalog/Science/Astronomy It is not clear who produced this, but there are resources here on all disaplines. The link takes you to the Astronomy resources.

Animation demonstrations (stuff you don't actually do, just watch):

http://www.valdosta.edu/~cbarnbau/astro_demos/

Get your coffee, here's the JAVA stuff:

http://www.walter-fendt.de/a11e/

http://www.walter-fendt.de/ph11e/ (Same as above, but Physics including Kepler's Laws, Newton, etc.)

http://www.astro.uiuc.edu/projects/data/

http://www.amherst.edu/~gsgreens/astroprograms.html

http://www.physics.sjsu.edu/tomley/kepler.html

http://physics.nad.ru/

http://www.physics.sjsu.edu/tomley/Demos.htm

Expand you knowledge and build stuff

CCD cameras, spectrography http://astrosurf.com/buil/index.htm Build a CCD camera and spectroscope
Weird Science http://www.eskimo.com/~billb/weird.html A great, fun place, for all kinds of science. Helps explain some things and raises interesting questions about others.
Kits & Models

Journals

Astronomy Education Review http://aer.noao.edu/ Free, on-line, up-to-date journal on astronomy education
ICARUS http://icarus.cornell.edu/index.html International Journal of Solar System Studies from Cornell University
e-Print archive http://xxx.lanl.gov/ electronic document service from Cornell University
American Association of Physics Teachers http://www.aapt.org/
ADS Abstract Service http://cdsads.u-strasbg.fr/ads_abstracts.html These databases cover all the major journals, many minor journals, conference proceedings, several Observatory reports and newsletters, many NASA reports, and PhD theses.

Reference

Gazetteer of Planetary Nomenclature http://planetarynames.wr.usgs.gov/ from USGS
Physical Constants http://www.chemie.fu-berlin.de/chemistry/general/constants_en.html Institute of Chemistry, Berlin
Fundamental Physical Constants http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Constants/index.html/codata86.html
Cosmobrain http://www.cosmobrain.com/index.html A quick lookup for lists of Bright Stars, Nearby Stars, Constellations, and an astronomical events calendar. Unfortunately it seems that the astronomical calendar no longer updates.
World Wide Lecture Hall http://web.austin.utexas.edu/wlh/ Lecture notes on everything.
Online Conversions:
- http://www.onlineconversion.com/ Convert any unit to another
- http://www.metric-conversions.org/ Metric conversion charts and calculators for metric conversions
PSIgate - Physical Science Information Gateway http://www.psigate.ac.uk/newsite/ A collection of web resources in all physical sciences. Find astronomy HERE.

Star Charts and Atlases <click there

Lookup Tools <click there Help in finding Lat and Long, sun and moon data, etc.

Slides, Video, Digital Media

Massimo Vicentini: Graphic work and models for scientific visualization http://www.mogi-vice.com/index-english.html A very nice set of avi animations.
MMI http://www.mmicorporation.com/ Astronomy only, so a good place to look. VHS, Video laser disk, slides, planetarium production supplies
NASA CORE http://core.nasa.gov/index.html Video, slides, software, print media
Finley-Holiday http://www.finley-holiday.com/ Videos, CD, DVD, Slides (35mm transparencies)
Hawkhill http://www.hawkhill.com/cgi-bin/htmlos.cgi/hawk/mainpage.html Educational video, DVD, CD-ROM
Scientific Visualization Studios http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/index.html Goddard Space Flight Center's animation studio. Lots of animations based on NASA science.
Sky Image Labs http://www.skyimagelab.com/index.html A commercial site that is a good resource for free downloadable images as well as prints and transparencies that can be purchased.
MathTools http://www.mathtools.net/Applications/Astronomy/Java/ A list of Java applets for astronomy.

Not Necessarily Astronomy Teacher Pages

Best on the Web for Teachers http://teachers.teach-nology.com/index.html List of teacher related web sites.
Sites for Teachers http://sitesforteachers.com/index.html a list of links for teachers.
How People Learn: Brain, Mind, & Expereince http://www.nap.edu/html/howpeople1/ This is a book edited by John D. Bransford, Ann L. Brown, and Rodney R. Cocking. You can buy the book or read it free here.
Printable Rulers http://www.vendian.org/mncharity/dir3/paper_rulers/ Ever need paper rulers for your class? Here they are.
Time and Date.com http://www.timeanddate.com/calendar/ Create and print calendars. Alternitive site more useful for visual impared. http://www.thetimenow.com/calendars

The Black Hole

This takes you to another of my pages. It's not about black holes. Its about the dark places the mind can go. Some really weird things here. The Black Hole
Debunker.com Helping to find the truth.

last modified: 21-Nov-2017