The Teacher/Student Manual
The HOA Teacher/Student Manual includes the curriculum for 13 chapters divided into five units. The unit topics and chapter contents may be explored via the Table of Contents page and/or by browsing through the examples provided below. The complete manual runs 560 pages and includes sections in each chapter for the teacher and for the student.
Introductions — Provide background information on the topics covered in the chapter.
- Introduction to Chapter 1: The Solar System
Investigations — Most chapters have Investigations, and none of these have specific answers. Their purpose is to have the student begin thinking about concepts which may be new to them, or about which they may have misconceptions. Investigations are meant to be a discovery process; the object is to have students think about and discuss the concept being presented.
- Drawing a Star Map
- Understanding the Motions of the Stars and Constellations Across the Sky
- Interpolation
- Constructing an O-C Diagram
Core Activities — Are activities necessary for acquiring skills and/or for understanding key concepts. However, if you have students who are already familiar with the material within some of the Core Activities, then you can leave that material out.
- Examples of Core Activities are provided in the Activities Section.
Activities — Some activities are included which are not really necessary for understanding basic concepts or acquiring a necessary skill. Some are further treatments of concepts not easily acquired, and some are merely interesting related topics, such as the sky pollution activity.
- Examples of Activities are provided in the Activities Section.
Space Talks — Address topics which give general information not included within the chapter activities or introductions. These sections explain how the current topic fits in with our understanding of the general nature of the Universe.
- Pawnee Sky Observations
- Variable Stars
- Algol (beta Persei), the Eclipsing Binary
Terminology — Vocabulary words are the words that are either in bold type in the Space Talks or in italics within the student chapters. All of the vocabulary words are defined in the glossary; a listing by chapter is also given in the Appendix.
Poster Pages — Present important or interesting aspects of related topics, and are usually historical in nature. From Polynesian celestial navigation to Abraham Lincoln and the Almanac Trail, the pages contain interdisciplinary connections with stellar astronomy and celestial phenomena.
- Henrietta Swan Leavitt: She Discovered How to Calculate the Distance to Galaxies
- David Malin: The Man Who Colors the Stars
- Astronomy is for Everybody
