Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources HS student-- Independent Study-- Astronomy

I need some direction.

DD(11) is extremely frustrated by the lack of rigor and the snail's pace of instruction in her high school courses (she attends a virtual public school).

Now, we don't know for sure-- that *could* change next year with the addition of AP courses (Environmental Science and World History), but I'm not really banking on it given the scope of the problem in the "honors" coursework.

DD sat down with us over the past few weeks and hammered out a few things that could go onto a "wish" list of interests. The largest problem is in trying to do "enrichment" that isn't going to make her current dissatisfaction WORSE in the coming four years (since she's officially only in 8th grade at the moment and we're trying to delay her HS graduation until she's 15). She wanted advanced chemistry or physics-- which we're entirely capable of teaching her, (with materials on-hand, probably), but given that this is material that she's expected to take again... not a good idea, sadly.


It's possible for her to propose a well-designed independent study course (provided that it isn't a subject offered by her school, nor is it something commonly an extracurricular activity like, say, martial arts or music). Astronomy, more than all of the other things on her list, seems the most likely candidate.

She's most interested in astrophysics, anyway, so this is fine. BUT-- this is well out of our areas of expertise and she's not had calculus or trig yet, so we're thinking that about junior-college or Gen-Ed level is what we're looking for here.

DD's learning style is highly amenable to audio-visual instruction, written materials, and didactic pedagogy.
So far, for possible resources, we have:

a) The Great Courses Understanding The Universe, an Introduction to Astronomy,2nd Ed. (She's had experience with TGC materials before, and the DVD format actually works very well for her.)

b) a GalileoScope telescope kit,

and

??

I'm thinking that trying to get Dr. Filippenko's Astronomy text to go with the course might be a good thing...


But I'm curious to hear some feedback from others who have had high-school level kids doing independent study. What am I overlooking here??

What kinds of "projects" do you think would be a good fit for this?(In order to get HS credit for it as an IS elective, she will have to have some plan for assessment-- but a research paper will NOT be her idea of a good time.)

I've designed a lot of laboratory instruction in my day... but I'm kind of clueless with earth and space science. Advice is greatly appreciated.

I guess it depends. What does the school want? Do they want her to ask a question, or simply learn about something and report?

From what I've seen at my son's small middle/high school (and my own memories), students at this level don't need to do independent or even guided research. They simply need to learn about something and report on it. YMMV depending on what the school expects, so I'd check with the science teacher.

Astronomy can be a great thing because many areas have amateur astronomy clubs that meet every month or so. We bought a telescope recently and plan to check out one or more of these groups in the summer (we're in the Bay Area in CA). A major advantage for your daughter if there's a group like this nearby would be that they often have members who are very serious about astronomy. Some of these people have seriously nice telescopes. If you get to know them (e.g. gain trust that the scope won't get damaged) and explain the situation, you could ask if she could take some pictures from their scopes.

If you live near a community or other college with an observatory, that's even better. They usually have public viewing nights (and days, if they have sun filters, which they almost certainly would).

There is a nice basic textbook on backyard astronomy; I'll look it up later at home and send the details.

HTH; did I answer any of your questions?

Val

I thought the great courses DVDs looked pretty good, I had planned to get those and a good telescope for my DD until I found the honors academy at the local state university.

My DD is now taking Astronomy for dual credit and I am really curious to learn what they do in the labs since most of them are held during the day. So far she has only had one lab due to the weather causing school cancellations - and that lab was the introduction class so not much happened.

I wish I had known earlier about the option for home-school dual credit classes at the university, they really don't advertise but its a great deal, only $50.00 per credit and they have access to a a great observatory. Maybe she could try something like that?

Terrific ideas-- thank you both.

I also have a friend who works at the Steward Observatory in AZ, so that person is helping me to vet materials for my daughter.

It looks as though our local community college has a "descriptive astronomy" course, but honestly, I think (based on what I know of my daughter) that it probably would be a little more basic than she's hoping for, having looked at the first half of the quarter's powerpoints from the lectures. Lots of stuff that DD's seen before. (The electromagnetic spectrum, etc.)

Val, I think that probably is what the school will want. They'll be most keen on something that: a) has a clear rubric for grading purposes, and b) will require virtually NO time from a teacher to "oversee."

As far as I'm aware, we don't have an option for dual enrollment with any of the local colleges. So even CC credits are plenty costly if we go that route... plus... she'll be 12. So, under that magic number, 13, and also not yet a HS graduate, either...

but I should look into it.

Don't know what state you're in, but in California, high school students who take CC classes are exempt from tuition charges. For an 8th or 9th grader, you'd have to get some kind of special permission from the district, though.

HK,

I don't know if this is the kind of thing you are looking for, but we have enjoyed "Turn Left at Orion" by Guy Consolmagno--the nice thing about this book is that the stars, etc., one is meant to find are all viewable with small telescopes or binoculars--some other books assume the availability of much more high-end equipment. Gary Seronik's binocular astronomy book is good, too.

This may not be sophisticated enough for her, but do you know Richard Moeschl's "Exploring the Sky"? It's one of the Chicago Review Press books for gifted middle-school science--we have enjoyed that one here, but my laddies are younger than your daughter--might be worth taking a peek at a library copy.

Do you ever cruise the Well-Trained Mind message boards? There are several astronomy buffs there (I'm thinking of Jean in Wisconsin, particularly) who might have some really good ideas for you.

Would she be interested in building her own telescope? There are lots of websites with instructions for making your own Dobsonian scope, for instance--might lead into some interesting stuff about optics and so on....

It sounds like fun!

mm

ETA: I haven't seen these (though I've used some of their other curriculum) but TOPS science has some books they developed in concert with NASA; their books are cheap and quite nicely designed, with lots of experiments--worth a look?

No, there isn't; but we do have a good reason. She's a 2E kid with a hidden disability. Even that deserves a word or two of explanation here, because I think it's critical to understand that ordinarily I'd say that early college would be a completely valid solution to her academic issues.

Right now, DD is statistically entering the highest risk period of her life for that disability-- female adolescents are a dismayingly high percentage of the total fatalities annually, and some estimates are that her odds of fatality will be as much as 1:40 in the next few years. Sobering for any parent. Those deaths were mostly thought to be because of risk-taking for social reasons and poor decision-making, but it is now believed that enhanced physiological vulnerability related to hormonal shifts at puberty may also be a significant factor.

Management of that disability is sometimes very complicated, even for us as adults. She's nearly died a few times, and we're crazy careful, even compared to other families like ours. Fifteen is pushing us (as her parents) to the very limits of what we can contemplate in terms of risk. We've paid close attention to those parents who have successfully launched kids with this disability; so we have a good idea what makes for a success. She'll need to be sufficiently mature that she won't take the risks that many adolescents would, even in the face of significant and ongoing social pressures. She'll also need to be VERY assertive, even with strangers or authority figures. Colleges cannot act in loco parentis. So for us, every additional year that passes is one step further into executive skills development-- and safety.

Long explanation without a lot of specific medical history, I know.
That's why she isn't going to go to college (well, not without Mom or Dad shadowing) at 12.


If my child did NOT have that disability? You bet I'd be contemplating college right now. It's generally an excellent solution.


Unfortunately, we are in a state that doesn't mandate dual enrollment policies of any kind, anyway... and we also aren't "in" our own school district, being in a charter school out of district. Not that it would matter, since all that is actually "required" of our public schools is that they identify and differentiate curriculum for GT kids. Of course, that isn't defined under the law. No mention of "appropriate" or "individual needs," either. Oh, and there isn't any funding for any of it anyway. I bet it's obvious where the loopholes are there. LOL. The fact is that they are "differentiating" material for her. She's been accelerated. She'd taking honors coursework. (School administrators everywhere are rolling their eyes right now and saying "What more do you WANT??") Now, if we make it easy for them (ie-- producing a good plan for Independent Study) then maybe we can come up with something that works for everyone. We just can't expect the school to pay for it, unfortunately.



I'd originally suggested star-party/constellation stuff to DD, but she really doesn't care about that material at all. She's more interested in the cosmology and astrophysics side of things.

The GalileoScope is a great tool; that's a kit, and my friend in Astronomy is the one that first told me about them over a year ago. They're a terrific bargain; very nice optics for the price, and VERY reasonably priced (~$50 from Edmunds Scientific).

Again, I really appreciate the various thoughts that everyone is sharing. This is really helpful to us as we consider all of the options available. Thank you!

Oooooooo.. add to favorites. yes.

The TOPS books "Scale of the Universe" and "Pi in the Sky" look very promising. Thanks!

Here is a blog written by a female astronomer. Lots of neat stuff.

http://riofriospacetime.blogspot.com/

Your daughter needs to focus on math - calc and diffeq are the prerequisite classes!!

I had another thought or two...

Would something like the MIT open courseware site be useful to you? There are quite detailed syllabi there of various courses (including astronomy), recommended texts, reading lists, sample exams, and so on.

There are also things like the IGCSEs and Cambridge PreU programmes that have syllabi and suggested texts--astronomy seems to be nestled inside of the physics courses there, but you might glean a few ideas about scope and sequence as well as locating some useful resources.

Would an online university be of interest? (I am assuming there are such things in the US--lots of Canadians use Athabasca University, for instance, for online post-secondary studies--they officially accept students as young as 16, but there is a mechanism in place to request a special admission for a younger student. Athabasca has four astronomy offerings; I would think something similar must exist south of the line, too.)