Here is an example of Doppler sound effect. You can see the lines of sound waves get stretch apart as the source of the sound moves away from the person hearing the sound.

Because the source of the sound is moving away, the pitch or frequency of the sound gets lower as the waves get further apart.

The red shift of light from distant galaxies works in a similar way. The universe expanding. Space itself is literally stretching apart from itself. Light or electromagnetic radiation comes in many forms as shown in the image below;

Notice red light has a longer wavelength (700 nm) in the visible spectrum than green or blue/purple (400 nm). As space gets stretched, the light from distant galaxies also gets stretched. We see this by looking at light spectra from these galaxies. The absorption and emission lines from this light is shifted toward the red end of the spectrum:

The CMB or Cosmic Microwave Background radiation is the first light that was emitted by the earliest elements when the early universe cooled enough to allow for light to travel freely. We see it in all directions of the night sky. You can think of it as a glowing electromagnetic fossil left over from the beginnings of the universe. Those early photons were emitted about 300,000 years after creation. It is this light that we ‘see’ with radio telescopes. In fact, about 1% of static on your radio is this background radiation from the early universe. Scientists have even mapped it. See the image below

The green, yellow, and red spots are areas of greater concentration. We think these are due to random quantum fluctuations from particles in the early universe. They are also, likely, regions where the earliest stars and galaxies formed.

Post responses to the following to your blog.

• Watch or re-watch the Ted Ed video on global ocean currents.
  • What strikes you most about the video?
  • What is a gyre and how are they significant? What is thermohaline circulation and how is it significant?
  • What questions do you have about surface current? What questions do you have about deep ocean currents?
• Post your final mixed media digital art piece with a brief write up on its Significance, Perspective, Evidence, and Connection.
• Post Images of all of your math work from the week. What are you struggling with? What are you doing well?
  • Factoring and Quadratics (9)
  • Special Right Triangles and the Unit Circle  (10 & 11)
  • Differentiating Logs and Implicit Differentiation (12 mostly)
  • Other math work that you pursued such as maps, mandalas, and/or fractals
• Where are you with the various projects aside from the digital art? How did you do with photography, your personal project, SCUBA, and/or your artificial reef this week? What do you need to accomplish in the coming weeks? What do you need help with?

Post the following to your blog or submit them to your Google Docs Folder:

1. A digital copy of your first and second draft images you made early this week. What did you learn about digital design? What tools did you learn? How are your design skills evolving? (you can submit these changes in jpg form)
2. Images of the math/physics you worked on this week (see attached). What did you learn? What strengths do you have in math and science? Where do you need to improve? (links: pressure of water physics problem, 9th grade math problem, 11th grade math, calculus practice)
3. Read the attached article on climate change. Watch the Crash Course Biology on Water that is attached. Answer the following: What is polarity and why is it significant? What is heat capacity and why is it significant? How is increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere impactful to the ocean system? How does CO2 impact oceans? What are the mechanisms involved in the interaction?
4. Give an update on your individual project. What progress are you making? What are your next steps? What is your plan for the coming weeks? What are you worried about?
5. Challenge: Watch the crash course videos on electrons and orbitals. They are complex and fascinating. Respond with thoughts they raised for you. Questions are welcome (I highly recommend these for these if you want a better understanding of the nature of nature)

Hi all,

See below for your first submission of work. Each bullet point represents something you should submit as evidence of work you did during these first weeks of the course.

• An image of your San Diego Map poster. Include a brief written note on what makes you proud about the poster and what you learned.
• An image of your Semester Azul Math Intro on Functional Modeling. Choose one of the functions and write about how that function is applied in helping people understand the world around us better. The more applications, the better. What questions do you have about the function you’ve chosen?
• Choose an image you took over the past two days either at sunset cliffs or in the afternoon session on Tuesday. Process the image to the best of your ability in Photoshop, Lightroom, or whatever processing tool you use. Include a brief note on your process of capturing. What were you working on when you took the photo? What techniques were you using?
• Goalsetting. Submit your plan for the coming semester. Include several parts. And don’t worry. Ideas you have now can change. They probably will. But we need to start somewhere.
  • What is it you plan to do, make, create, etc this semester. Are there professional models of the type of work you want to do? What are they? Share them.
  • Look through the Semester Azul Assessment Document. This is not an exhaustive list at all. It is only meant to offer some ideas for the types of ways you could be thinking about improving as a person, a student, and a thinker. What are your personal goals for growth this semester? What are you already strong at? What do you want to improve at? Again, this may change, but thinking about it now will help as a starting point.

Post the following to your blog this week:

1. Gravitation Problem Set
2. A reflection on this week’s text from The Universe is a Green Dragon (seminar text). Choose an idea that struck you from the text. What is argument the author is making with that idea? Give evidence for why you think the author is making that argument. What is a piece of science you learned from the text? How does it fit into or contribute to the author’s overall argument?
3. Reflect on the breakout project you joined this week (ocean, camp planning, High Altitude Balloon, trees, photography, etc).
   • What did you do this week? What did you accomplish?
   • What are you hoping to accomplish in the coming weeks?
   • What did you learn about yourself? About group work? About science or the project at hand?
   • How will you consider yourself successful in this endeavor?
4. Look through the list of class competencies. Which did you display, have success in during the class? What technical skill did you begin learning? What evidence is there for your continued improvement in these arenas? (please feel free to add video, photo, or other media in order to show evidence.

Post the following for this week’s work:
1. An image of the Waves Problem Set Completed
2. An image of your Cosmic Structure Poster with a brief description of what struck you about the structure. What did you learn researching it and making the poster? What questions do you have about it? How did your group function? What work did you do vs the rest of your group?
3. Read the seminar text (or watch the video). What is the main point of Feynman’s argument in this text? Do you agree or disagree? Why?
4. This week, we worked in groups to create a poster to teach the rest of the class, we did a seminar on science and beauty, we completed a Wednesday free write and shared, completed a problem set on waves, some of you went out for a night under the stars, and others prepped for their night. Look through the attached class competencies – take some time to identify any from the academic and/or interpersonal list (or for those who did astronomy from the technical) that you showed evidence of this week through your work. How did you display said characteristic? How might you improve on it/grow more? Where are you at present? Where would you like to go?

I’ve linked the text we read and discussed in class yesterday – The Power of Light. Choose one of the prompts below to respond to from that text
1. Choose a technological advance from the text. What does that technology teach you about light? What questions does it raise for you? How is the technology significant?
2. What characteristic of light that you read about was most striking or interesting to you? Why? What is its significance? What questions does it raise for you?

Also respond to the questions below:
3. What is your understanding of how starlight is produced? What forces are at play? What is happening inside the star?
4. What do you find most fascinating about light and why?

5. Post an image of both sides of the Number Sense Problem set.
6. Post your plan for astronomy over the coming few weeks. Who will you be working with? When will you go out? What object(s) do you hope to image and why?
7. How is the semester going for you? What are your strengths? What are you struggling with? What are you hoping we get to in the coming weeks?

The project sheet for our astronomy unit covers what we will be doing over the coming four weeks.

Use the neave planetarium site to find an object in the night sky to image. https://neave.com/planetarium/

Cross reference the objects in the night sky with the Messier Catologue or NGC catalog to find something that will be up. The object must be brighter than Magnitude 10 and bigger than 0.5 arcseconds.

You can also look at prominent stars – Magnitude 3 or brighter – to image. Each one of you should have a hit list of stars and deep sky objects that you’re interested in imaging.

Your process should be the following:

1. Spend some time individually finding objects you have an interest in imaging. Any object larger than 0.5 arcsec and brighter than magnitude 12 will suffice. Find three to four objects.
2. Convene with your partnership – groups of three to four. Decide on which of the objects you’d like to image. Get that signed off by Brian. You should do a max of four objects. I’d probably recommend two would be better because you’ll be able to collect more data the fewer the objects you plan to image.
3. With the group, plan out what type of wide field image you’d like to capture. Do some research on wide field imaging. (constellations, milky way, timelapse, star trails)

Good luck!

This folder has your photos from the first days. Find them, process, and post for your first assignment.