List of Lecture Demonstration Materials

Astronomy 101

• "The Universe in a Toy" -- demos of Newton's laws of gravity and motion; conservation of momentum, angular momentum, and energy using toys

• Generator/flashlight and electromagnet for concept of changing fields generating the other field and propagation of light

• Posterboard with colored pegs for brightest and nearest stars on HRD

• The "astronomical signs" for debunking astrology in the planetarium

• An "atom with electrons on springs" that can get very excited when "photons" with the right energy are absorbed

• A 4x4" diffraction grating and "slit" for use with an overhead projector. Works even in the HUGE lecture halls.

• A "buzzball" that annoyingly demonstrates the Doppler shift of sound.

• A banana to demonstrate stars "peeling" away from the main sequence (OK, you provide the banana)

• Beads, balls, and balloons for relative sizes of stars. The Sun as a 1mm bead leads to Betelgeuse as a 650 mm balloon.

• Luminosity and spectral type cards to turn a small lecture hall or classroom into an HR Diagram.

• Black "stretchy" space pulled taunt across a large ring for demonstrating the warping of space. The material damps the orbits rather quickly, however.

• Phosphorescent football and painted spiral galaxy for classifying galaxies.

• Galaxy cards of various sizes extracted from my Sandage Atlas of Galaxies (need to be laminated)

• Phosphorescent galaxies on elastic that demonstrate uniform expansion of the Universe

Astronomy 150

• Flour and cocoa and a sling-shot for cratering