The Scale of the Universe - explore how big the universe is

The Scale of the Universe is a very cool resource that allows you to explore the size of the universe by relating it to other things we know.

You slide the scale to go from the know size of the Universe, 1026, down to sub atomic particles 10-35. It zooms in and out going through different groupings of things that are similar in size.

It's a great resource for exploring the universe, as well as visualizing the sizes of lots of things, from humans, to states, to plants, to animals.

Check it out: http://scaleofuniverse.com/

Zooniverse - real science online - great resource

Zooniverse is a very cool project I found out about today. Zooniverse is a collection of "citizen science projects" where citizens contribute to the research and content.

The projects are all about space science: Planet Hunters, Milky Way, Moon Zoo, Solar storms and more. The projects use publicly available information as resources and look for new things about the planets, solar system and more.

The projects are an excellent resource for inquiry based learning in both content and scientific process. There is an education site that has ideas for using Zooniverse in the classroom and there are education resources specifically for the Galaxy Zoo and Solar Stormwatch projects.

There is a huge amount of information and resources available here and they can be used across subjects and grades.

Microsoft Research Worldwide Telescope

Microsoft Research has created Worldwide Telescope.

WorldWide Telescope (WWT) enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world. Experience narrated guided tours from astronomers and educators featuring interestingplaces in the sky.

A web-based version of WorldWide Telescope is also available. This version enables seamless, guided explorations of the universe from within a web browser on PC and Intel Mac OS X by using the power of Microsoft Silverlight 3.0.

Note: The web-based version will ask for more local storage (about 40MB), but that shouldn't be a problem for anyone.

You can just explore the skies by location, constellations, planets, stars, and more. You can select from digitized skies, ultra-violet, and more. You can even look at earth!

There are also guided tours available. These were set up by astronomers and researchers and are very well designed and informative. The guided tours include galaxies, planets, stars, Apollo missions, Mars missions, and much more.

The earth at night view is great to use to show students where the most lighted areas are. The United States and Europe are the brightest areas at night (Japan is pretty bright too).

I had way too much fun playing with this today. I think that this would be a great resource for science classes to show our solar system and galaxy.