Purpose:

Having done a little reading about something new in Astronomy this second part of the lab is focused on presenting what you have learned to the class. Again, this is essentially a list of criteria and expectatons for the presentation which will be quite short.

Overall time of presentation:

The goal of this presentation is for it to be no longer than 5 min. To this end you will need to be pretty focused on what expectations and criteria listed below.

Criteria/Expectations:

As was noted in the criteria for the selection of the news article there is some flexibility in how you choose to meet the criteria. This is partly because it is difficult to write a set of criteria which apply clearly to the wide variety of possible news articles and research papers you have found. Here is framework for your presentation.

• Item 1: What is the news that you found, when and where was it published, and who wrote the article. This is where the 50 word summary of the article you did for the 1st part of this lab is useful.

• Item 2: Why is this news important? What does it add or change about our understanding of astronomy. There may not be any grand answer to this question but it wouldn't be news if it didn't contribute to our understanding somehow. One way to do this is to identify the aspect of astronomy that is affected by the news and describe the effect. Does the news confirm an understanding we have, provide additional examples of something we've been looking for, or does it present a phenomena that we're not sure that we understand? Keep it short but help us, as your listeners, understand why this news matters.

• Item 3: What was the science paper behind the news article? Who are the authors and where was it published (this establishes the credibility of the underlying science). Read us the title of the paper and the abstract.

• Item 4: What was the data that is presented in the science paper? Were there measurements made and if so what did they measure? Did they use ground based telescopes or space telescopes? Is this a paper that is based on new interpretation of models of how things work and has no explicit data?

• Item 5: Do you think the news article is an effective description of the science paper? Did you understand the news article better after reading the science paper (no is a possible answer if you explain why)?

LAB DELIVERABLES:

I) Submit the outline of your presentation in written form to the LMS. My purpose is to encourage you to write out at least the framework of what you will say. Remember to read it ahead of time and be sure it can be comfortably read in 4-5 minutes.