Comments on: Celebrating Astronomy: NSDL Web Seminar, Thursday Sept. 25th

By: Andrea Feller

Andrea Feller — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 04:17:06 +0000

Tonight I watched the archived webcast of Celebratin
Astonomy: A Star Story. This was a fascinating way of learning that I have not participated in before. I wished I would have been available to participate in the chat portion of this experience. I learned a great deal, I have always been interested in the stars but did not know very much about them. A few of the things that I learned are as follows:
* Stars are mostly Hydrogen, a little helium and a very small amount of metals
*A stars life and death is dependent upon hor much mass they have available and how quickly the use up their energy
*A star is born from collapsing cold clouds of interstellar gas and dust, they rotate as they are collapsing, conserving angular momentum as they form smaller clumps that become stars.
*Stars are classified based on their specta which gives information on the stars is made of, the temperature, and the brightness.
*Stars die differently based on their mass

By: Erika

Erika — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 21:24:35 +0000

-The National Science Digital Library presented Dr. Cathy Ezrailson and Dr. Susana Deustua in a very interesting web seminar covering astronomy and star formation. The two presenters were very excited to get started and to share their hard work and dedication to the seminar. It was evident that Dr. Ezrailson has conducted a web seminar before. As for Dr. Denustua, it took her a little bit to get warmed up to the presentation, but both did such a great job! The content of this seminar has helped me establish more background knowledge about star formations. I feel by watching and listening to this seminar, I have added to my prior knowledge and built upon what I already knew about stars, astronomy, and star formations. The two professors researched and conducted this web seminar were fantastic. They created such a relaxed and causal atmosphere for the participants. Even though this was an informal presentation, I thought it was such a neat set up. I thought it was really neat that students, colleagues, and other guests could log on and interact with each other and the presenters. Not only were there students and participants from South Dakota, but from nearly ten other states. My favorite part about the presentation was the interaction. As a participant in the web seminar you were asked to answer questions and voice opinions. I thought the live interaction between presenters and participants was so cool! The way technology can connect people is so incredible! I thought overall this was a great learning experience.

By: Louree

Louree — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 00:46:32 +0000

This was the first time I had ever veiwed a webseminar, I was not able to view it during the first time but was able to view the presentation after it was posted on the website. It was an interesting way to learn new content and I think that students would find it to be a good change of pace. I liked how everyone could participate. I think a webseminar could be difficult and not appropriate for elementary school students. The content and the presentation of the content would not reach them. The content would be advanced for students who have no background knowledge in stars. I found some of the information above my head and therefore found the presentation hard to get into, and I think students would have a hard time as well. I really liked the “movies” I think those were a great way assist in understanding, I believe young students would enjoy those. So you could even modify the seminar to show just clips to make it more at younger students levels.

By: Brianna

Brianna — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:20:18 +0000

I reviewed the make-up for the web seminar called, “Celebrating Astronomy: A Star’s Story”. I found this to be very interesting. I had never seen a web seminar before and I thought that it was a really neat way to learn new things from the comfort of your own home! I learned a lot of new information from this video, such as: stars are made from mostly hydrogen, stars are massive, hot, glowing balls of gas, and stars can be high or low mass. There is a difference between high and low mass stars because high mass stars are brighter and they don’t live as long. Astrology has never been a huge interest of mine, but I did find it helpful to learn some key facts about the subject. I really like the bits of information that were given out about the life of stars, and how they are accounted for and studied about. It is always interesting to learn about something that you are not familiar with and a web seminar was a great way to do that. I feel that a web seminar could be a really helpful way to get students to learn in a different way. It is interesting to take on different learning challenges and try to learn by technology. Overall, this was a good experience for me, as well as an educational one.

By: John W

John W — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 21:43:14 +0000

I thought the seminar was very informational, mostly because I knew nothing about stars at all. It was a fun experience to have. Some of the most intriguing information i found was:
Composition: 70-80 % hydrogen
20-30% helium
1-2 % metals
*Stars are actually hot massive glowing balls of gas. Im embarassed to say i thought they were some type of solid, just like a planet might be.

Also, then information about their life span was very thought provoking considering it all boils down to thier mass.

High Mass:
-bright
-very short lives
-burn “fuel” rapidly

Low Mass:
-less bright
-”burn” for billiions of years
- have long lives

I would have thought the opposite for each amount of mass.

By: Lindsey Miller

Lindsey Miller — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:18:47 +0000

Since I could not make to to the live seminar I listened to the make-up seminar. I was really impressed with it. I learned many new facts about the life cycle of stars; including star birth and formation, classification, planet formation, and when stars die. I did not know that stars’ life and death depend on how much mass is available and how fast they use it up. The higher the mass of stars, the brighter the stars are, and the shorter their lives will be. The lower the mass of the stars, the more dull they are, and they will live longer lives. One fact that really surprised me is that the sun is actually just an average mass star. I really enjoyed the seminar and thought the presenters did a nice job of explaining everything. It was great how they stopped in the middle a couple times to answer any questions!

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:03:06 +0000

I too wish I had not had to work so that I could have participated in the event; however this is the next best thing. I learned some interesting information as to how astronomers classify stars, and that the classification is somewhat correlated to the age of the star. I also really enjoyed the examples that allowed us to determine using the spectrographs what elements made up the mystery star. And of course, as a future educator, I found the links provided to be invaluable, if nothing else mattered, those links did.

By: Megan Freeman

Megan Freeman — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 04:51:02 +0000

Today I reviewed a web seminar on stars. This was the first web seminar that I have even seen. I was really surprised because I learned a lot and wish that instead of reviewing it I could have actually participated in it. I really liked it because it was interesting and it was like you were in the classroom but in the comfort of your own home. The discussion between the four people talking and the talking between everyone else was neat to see. I liked how you could actually respond to the questions and see other answers. It was fun to see the presenters could actively point out important things or where you should be looking at. I would really like to see more of these and to someday when I am teaching try this out in some way. Plus it was interesting to see the movies and to hear professionals talk about a topic that they are very well in knowledgeable about. This is a really great way to maybe introduce a lesson or to end one. This is a great use for technology and I think that more classes should integrate this in to their classroom.

By: Shauna Tjepkes

Shauna Tjepkes — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 20:09:04 +0000

I was unable to attend the webseminar, but I just viewed the presentation and I was amazed at all the things I learned about stars. I had always thought that stars were made up of mostly carbon, but I found out that they are in fact made mostly of hydrogen. I also learned that stars are hot glowing balls of gas. I never knew there were so many different types of stars until I viewed this webseminar. I learned a lot about high and low mass stars that I had never known before now. I thought this webseminar was quite interesting and am disappointed that I missed the actual presentation. I did think that there was a lot of information, which is important for people to know, but it was slightly overwhelming for someone who doesn’t have that much background knowledge of stars and how they are formed. Overall, I was very impressed with the presentation and learned a great deal of information from it. Thanks!

By: Jessica M.

Jessica M. — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:45:12 +0000

I wish I could have experienced the actual web seminar but I wasn’t able to due to work. But I certainly still did learn a great deal from seeing the presentation and looking through the PowerPoint. Some things I learned are that stars are primarily made up of mostly Hydrogen which makes them glowing balls of gas. Mass is the main factor that plays a part in how a star is formed and eventually dies. I guess I have never thought about a star “dying” before. Really it means that the star died in an energetic explosion, if it is high mass, engulf planets losing outer layers and becoming a white dwarf if it is medium mass, or just puffing out and becoming a white dwarfs if it is small mass. Some more information I learned is that high mass stars are bright and have short lives where as low mass stars are less bright and have much longer lives. I find this really interesting because though a high mass star’s life is considered short, it is still hundreds of millions of years long! I know I don’t know a great deal about astronomy, but this seminar taught me some fun facts about stars. They are great big balls of gas that live millions-billions of years fully of hydrogen and helium.