Using Data Science in High School Astronomy @ ASP 2024

~ newton

Astronomy datasets can be hard to use for high school astronomy classes. Data science education pedagogy can be leveraged to create astronomy activities in which students interrogate data, create visuals, and use statistical thinking to construct astronomy knowledge. This session describes how the NASA/IPAC Infrared Science Archive (IRSA) can provide a web-based interface for students to use basic data science techniques in astronomy to build data literacy while learning astronomical concepts. The activities shared will be available for anyone but were designed to be used in astro 101 classes in high school or early college.

WeTeach_CS Summit 2024

~ newton

Modern science teaching can benefit from combining computer science and data science. Students can construct science knowledge using data science techniques through writing and programming code. This session will show some Google Colab/Jupyter Notebook Python activities using authentic datasets designed for high school science courses. Learn how to access, reduce, visualize, and interpret some scientific datasets using best practices in basic data science. Some example activities will be explored using web-based tools tested in a classroom environment with students. Ideas about finding and accessing scientific datasets will be explored. All code is available as open source, and all lessons are shared as Creative Commons material.

Be sure to check out my list of activities that incorporate computational thinking, data science, and coding.

Learning Hubble-Lemaître’s Law Using SDSS Data and Computational Thinking

~ newton
Plot of relative distance versus redshift of galaxy population

American Association of Physics Teachers/American Astronomical Society Winter Meeting 2024

Modern astronomical science is increasingly driven by data science and computational thinking. It is possible to have astronomy students construct astronomy knowledge while employing computational thinking and data science pedagogies by using partially-reduced datasets like those from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in conjunction with Python and Google Colab notebooks. Here, we explore a highly scaffolded activity for students to build a Hubble-Lemaître diagram using data from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) from SDSS. Educators with access to plates from the BOSS mission can tie the activity directly to data associated with the plate. Students access the data directly from the database and use Python and Google Colab notebooks to reduce, visualize, and interpret data in a highly scaffolded format. Students are asked to interpret plots and place data in an astrophysical context. This activity is part of ongoing research into the impacts of using computational thinking pedagogies with physics and astronomy students. This activity has been used in a high school astronomy course. The activity and all associated programming code are freely available as Creative Commons content.

AAPT SM 2023 Coding Integration Workshop

~ newton

Welcome to the AAPT Summer Meeting 2023 Coding Integration and Data Science Integration in High School workshop. The workshop is happening in Ballroom A09 in the convention center.

Registered participants should direct their web browser (Chrome, Firefox, Safari, or MS Edge) to https://stemcoding.herokuapp.com/ and ask your instructor for the join key.

If you want more STEMcoding content, check out the STEMcoding YouTube channel. If you would like to 2.0 graduate credit hours in STEMcoding coursework, check out the AAPT-affiliated courses from STEMcoding.

For those in academia, use this link: http://go.osu.edu/physics_coding