Teaching Astronomy with an Inquiry Activity on Stellar Populations

TL;DR

This paper presents an inquiry-based teaching activity for advanced students to learn stellar populations by creating their own Hertzsprung-Russell diagrams using star images and spectra, mimicking real astronomer methods.

Contribution

It introduces a novel inquiry activity that engages students in analyzing star data to understand stellar evolution, bridging practical analysis with conceptual learning.

Findings

Students successfully created Hertzsprung-Russell diagrams.

The activity enhanced understanding of stellar evolution concepts.

Students experienced authentic astronomical data analysis.

Abstract

We describe a new inquiry design aimed at teaching advanced high-school to senior college students the basics of stellar populations. The inquiry is designed to have students come up with their own version of the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram as a tool to understand how stars evolve based on their color, mass, and luminosity. The inquiry makes use of pictures and spectra of stars, which the students analyze and interpret to answer the questions they come up with at the beginning. The students undergo a similar experience to real astronomers, using the same tools and methods to figure out the phenomena they are trying to understand. Specifically, they use images and spectra of stars, and organize the data via tables and plots to find trends that will then enable them to answer their questions. The inquiry also includes a "thinking tool" to help connect the trends students observe to the larger picture of stellar evolution. We include a description of the goals of the inquiry, the activity description, the motivations and thoughts that went into the design of the inquiry, and reflections on how the inquiry activity worked in practice.