Peer Review

Animations for Conceptual Astronomy

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Reviewed:: Mar 21, 2008 by Physics

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:: This is a nice collection of animations of astronomical principles. Topics covered include: The Celestial Sphere, Motion of the Sun, Eclipses, Orbital Motion, Tidal Forces, Retrograde Planetary Motion, Kepler's Laws, Phases of Venus, Rotation Curves, Planets and Stars, Exotic Stars and Black Holes, Equivalence Principle, Expansion of the Universe, Curvature of Space, Gravitational Waves, and Disk Formation.
Type of Material:: Reference
Recommended Uses:: They would be excellent aides as part of a lecture or discussion on one of the specific principles.
Technical Requirements:: Animations are available as avi files; the author has also provided links to html files with the animations embedded as quicktime movies.
Identify Major Learning Goals:: To help students visualize and reinforce astronomical principles.
Target Student Population:: They are appropriate for introductory level astronomy courses. They would be applicable to college astronomy as well as high school astronomy.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: None

Content Quality

Rating:

Strengths:

A wide selection of topics are covered. The animations provide good dynamic and three-dimensional graphical representations of the principles involved. Overall, they accurately represent the physical systems. The quality of the animations is very good.

Concerns:

There are some concerns regarding individual animations:

The Rotation Curve for a Galaxy, while accurate, may mislead a student into believing that the arms of a spiral galaxy "wind up" during the life of the galaxy.

The animation entitled a Perspective of Venus might better be labeled as a Cloudless Perspective of Venus. Some students may believe that this is what they would see in a telescope.

The animation entitled a Ringworld Flyby is very nicely done; but it is more science fiction than science, but could be used during a discussion of extra-terrestrial life.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:: The animations represent very specific astronomical principles. They make excellent adjuncts to traditional materials. Among the noteworthy are the eclipse and Kepler's law animations.
Concerns:: Some animations (e.g the retrograde motion examples) really need narration or some additional explanation to help students understand what they are seeing. Although this is not a problem when they are used in a conventional classroom context, it may be an issue for those teaching courses on-line. Also, some animations progress rather quickly during standard playback, making it difficult for some students to follow along as the situation evolves.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:: The materials can be used directly from the web site or they can be downloaded and included in presentations through other means. Downloading is simple and straightforward. Use of the alternative viewing options, directly from the web site, is also quite easy to use.
Concerns:: The images on the links page are of limited value and make it harder to navigate. A text-only version might be useful.

Other Issues and Comments:: The following comments are from the author:
The author of the materials is grateful for the concerns expressed by the reviewer on this evolving and growing collection of materials, and will endeavor to address most of those concerns. However, because the animations are intended to be lecture ancillaries that are also available to students outside of class and are not intended to be stand alone tutorials, it is unlikely that audio will be added to the animations.
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