ASTRONOMY & COSMOLOGY

11th Grade Main Lesson Block

Fall 2014 in the Fibonacci Room
Taught by Mr Poleson
[call or text: 503 481 0536; e-mail: buzz.poleson@portlandwaldorf.org]

In this block we will consider Astronomy in three different contexts:

What does the starry universe present to us through our senses? What can we know about sky
events from our personal naked eye astronomy?
How has what we know about the sky changed historically? How have social, mathematical, and
technological factors played their parts in this development?
What is the basis for our modern ideas relating gravity, light, mass, time, and distance to our
understanding of the nature of the universe.

In our study we will consider:

Week 1, September 3,4,5 - What to look for in the Summer sky of the Northern hemisphere;
seasonal items of interest, telling direction and time from the sky, a preparation for sky-
watching during outdoor week, September 8-12.
Week 2, September 15-19 - Ancient and traditional ways of explaining and using what we see in
the sky; How modern ideas about the sky were born out of the mathematics and logic of the
Greeks
Week 3, September 22-26 - How those ideas were refined through the scientific technique and
telescopic advances of the Renaissance Europeans; the Church versus Science debate; Galileo,
Newton, and the clockwork universe.
Week 4, September 29 - October 3 - Into the 20th and 21st centuries, relativity, quantum
physics and space travel; gravity, time, and the space-time continuum.


Grades will be based on:

30%: Daily class participation in lecture, discussions, and activities.
This includes taking daily notes
30%: Main Lesson Book
30%: The three quizzes, 10% each, Fridays of weeks 2,3, and 4
10%: Project and presentation