Astronomy Village^®: Investigating the Universe^TM

Astronomy Village: Investigating the Universe is a CD-ROM based multimedia program that provides teachers and students with ten complete investigations in astronomy intended to complement and extend the science curriculum in 9th and 10th grade classes. Students, in teams of three, use the Astronomy Village software to conduct investigations in astronomy and learn about the nature of scientific inquiry. The Astronomy Village's interface is based on the village-like appearance of major observatories on mountain tops. Tools available to students include an image processing program, an image browser, and various simulation programs. The simulation programs include a star life cycle simulator, an orbital simulator (Mac only), and a 3-D star simulator (Mac only). Other resources available on this CD for the student research teams include: digitized video clips; images from the Hubble Space Telescope and other instruments; audio clips of astronomers discussing their work; computer animations and graphics; and full text documents such as book chapters, NASA publications, and articles from astronomy journals and magazines.

Application Goal

Objectives

• be motivated to learn about concepts in astronomy
• engage in scientific inquiry
• explore questions related to astronomy
• make use of technology to acquire, explore, and analyze information
• learn specific concepts related to stars and stellar evolution

System Requirements

• 16 megabytes of RAM
• 14" RGB color monitor (800 x 600 pixels, 256 colors)
• CD-ROM drive
• Netscape Navigator 4.0 or higher, or Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 or higher

Ordering

NASA Classroom of the Future
Wheeling Jesuit University
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