Color of Stars Properties of Dust Super Gelatin Telescope Allocation Committee Astro-Madness Delta, Delta, Delta Hot Air Mirror, Mirror

Subject: Physical Science
Grade Level: 9-12: Integrated Physics and Chemistry (IPC), Physics, and Astronomy

Materials You Will Need
Whole Class

• Incandescent light bulb (60-100 watt frosted) and base.


• Optional: String of clear holiday lights.


• Fluorescent light (single bulb).


• Transmission grating slides (35mm slide).


• Manila folders


• Black construction paper (9 x 11 inches)


• Optional: Glo-Doodler (by Colorforms) -- a toy writing tablet with a hot pink plastic sheet that "glows" when you write on it. It also strongly absorbs green light and emits yellow, orange and red.

• Half of a manila folder: cut a whole manila folder along the fold to produce two 8 x 11 sheets.


• 1 sheet of black construction paper.


• 2 small (20 mm or 3/4 inch) binder clips.


• 2 index cards (3 by 5 inch size) to make the adjustable slit.


• Clear tape and 2 rubber bands.


• 1 Transmission grating slide (35mm slide).

Guides and Worksheets
Download, print and photocopy these lesson documents for your class.

Teacher Guide - low res 5.6M
Teacher Guide - high res 13.8M
Student Worksheet 480K
StarDate script 52K

Overview
This lesson guides students to build a spectroscope, use it as tool, and interpret their observations by applying concepts of conservation of energy and properties of matter. Students will observe all three kinds of spectra: continuous, emission, and absorption.

What Students Do
Students make a spetroscope out of common classroom materials and a transmission grating. The spectroscope includes an adjustable slit that students make out of index cards.

*TEKS are Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills. For more information, visit http://www.tea.state.tx.us/teks/.