Creating an Open-Source, Online Astronomy Course with a Canadian Twist

Brian Martin
The King's University College, Edmonton

Introduction

Although astronomy ranks as one of the most popular science "options" taken by Canadian university students few gain a sense, from their textbooks, of the many important contributions made to the science by Canadians and at Canadian research facilities. This is part of the motivation behind producing the digital resource that I would like to share with the Canadian Astronomical community. Another motivation is to create digital learning materials that make use, in a more integrated way, of the rich, interactive resources now available to course developers, These include interactive applets (written in FLASH/AS3) as well as many video clips created with Blender, Celestia, Stellarium and other simulation packages. Finally, a third goal is to create learning materials that can help shift the face of pedagogy to one that more overtly embraces active learning strategies.

Digital Learning Resources

The material presented here consists of a number of types of Digital Learning Objects (DLOs):

Applets (short, web transmissible programs) written mostly in ActionScript 3. There are approximately 100 applets embedded within the course textual material. These can be re-purposed in any number of ways and need not be used directly with the text. All of the applets (with the exception of a small number from the Nebraska Astronomy Applet project) have been produced by the author and students at The King's Center for Visualization in Science (KCVS) which is an NSERC/CRYSTAL funded facility at King's. The applets are essentially "beta versions" but are all in classroom ready form. One potential outcome of creating an on-line open-source resource would be the refinement of these applets by others.
Video Clips: Several dozen video clips have been created (usually video captures from Stellarium, Celestia and the 3D rendering program Blender) as well as a number of excellent public domain videos from NASA, AURA, Gemini and others.
Textual Material and Worked Examples: There is a "script" of text that forms a narrative for students. This is currently written to follow the texts by Seeds and Seeds and Backman and the table of contents shown in Figure 6 reflects this. Each section also contain numerous worked examples which can serve as excellent discussion starters for in-class presentation. As well, the examples often draw on the DLOs described above and can be used to encourage a more active learning style.
There is nothing to prevent re-ordering the textual material but it would entail some editing on the part of a user. Throughout, however, an attempt has been made to make the supporting narrative sufficiently "generic" that it can be used in conjunction with other books if that is desired. Ideally, however, with participation of other writers this could become a stand-alone course open to all and remove the need of a print version text.

The "Pitch"

I would like to contribute this material as a digital resource available to the Canadian astronomical community. Further, I would like to suggest that the CASCA education committee explore the idea of creating an "on-line consortium" of CASCA members who would like to contribute - in the spirtit of open-source projects - to the creation of a more extensive set of materials. Added-value would come by:

having the materials carefully reviewed by expert members to ensure relevancy and accuracy
extend the creative reach of these materials by using different insights and skills
maintain and present a Canadian flavour to undergraduate astronomy education

Of course developing materials such as these take a siginificant investment in time and energy but a nucleus of 4 or 5 persons could produce a great deal. (The materials presented here took two years - one of which was a sabbatical - to produce at this "draft" stage). The King's Centre for Visualization Science could play a role in the development of additional astronomy visualizations. We have, for example, employed a number of USRA students (primarlily in the area of Climate change visualization) over the past 4 years.

Even if you do not have the time to participate in resource development but would consider using some of these resources in teaching please take a look at the following samples.

Several Sample Pages

Starlight and Atoms

Figure 1 shows a sample page dealing with the topic of starlight and spectra. This section has been cross-referenced to a popular introductory astronomy text (Seeds and Backman, 11th edition) as part of a "build" produced for Athabasca University. You can click on Figure 1 to load this page into a separate window if you wish to view the complete section.

Figure 1 Sample page from chapter dealing with starlight and spectra

Included in this section are several applets that are intended to provide students with a more active engagement with the ideas being presented. Figure 2 and 3 show examples.

	To run this applet simply adjust the velocity slider and press go. An optional "ruler" can be activated and students can measure the changes in wavelength and illustrate the Doppler moving source condition. Figure 3 shows the connection between stellar rotation and line broadening. Although this is coded in ActionScript, the newest version of AS3 is sufficiently "powerful" to enable a numerical integration of the line profile across the disc and still have "real-time" interactivity.
Figure 2 The Applet Doppler

Figure 3 Applet Spectral Line illustrating how rotation affects line broadening.

Stellar Evolution and Binary Systems

As a more substantial example Figure 4 shows a screen from the section dealing with the topic of Stellar Evolution and Binary Stars. Shown here is an applet (Roche) and an example problem. This helps illustrate a common feature of the course materials - there are several hundred worked examples many of which make direct use of the interactive applets. Click on Figure 4 to open this page in a separate window.

Figure 4 Portion of page dealing with the Algol Paradox and Stellar Evolution.

The worked example (Example 10.8 shown in Figure 4) also requires the student to use a stellar evolution applet which generates models based on the Eggleton code. Using these two applets the student is then able to investigate the Algol Paradox. The stellar evolution applet is shown below in Figure 5. Click on the image to launch the applet in a separate window.

Figure 5 The applet StellarEvolution allows studnets to investigate how mass affects evolution rates. Click figure to launch applet.

Accessing the Entire Course

You can view the entire course by clicking Figure 6. The navigation system is self-explanatory. However, to run the course materials you will require the Flash 9 (or newer plug in). The materials are cross-platform and are easy to use in traditional lecture settings as well as more active-learning based class settings.

A complete listing of all applets will be available soon on the King's Centre for Visualization in Science web site. I would welcome feedback and can be reached at brian.martin@kingsu.ca.