Major Projects/Culminating Projects

These pages are designed for students of Jeff Adkins at Deer Valley High School in Antioch, California. Click the links at left to go to the other pages belonging to Mr. Adkins.

Major Project Ideas

A compilation of notes for major projects will be posted here for students seeking links, etc., and to document ideas for future classes. Note: some of these ideas are not suitable for culminating projects for academy students. Consult with me if you are not sure. (UPDATED 30 October 2006)

In NOVEMBER, you'll be asked to tell me what you need and what your idea is.

In FEBRUARY/MARCH, you'll be asked to report out on progress so far.

The project itself is due in MAY.

More specific deadlines will be announced in class.

General Rubric:

0 - Not Completed
1 - A project turned in but does not work/is not finished/appears to have been done the night before
2 - Project appears to have taken some time to complete but contains "do-over" scale errors
3 - Project requires only minor corrections or revisions to be complete.
4 - Project is complete as defined by the proposal you submitted
5 - Project exceeds definition made by the proposal.

Original Research: This is the best way to get BIG POINTS and lots of recognition. We strongly encourage you to do ESPACE Academy projects compatible with the mission of the academy. Students are working on things like analyzing craters on Mars, searching for novae in globular clusters, investigating the design of rockets, and more. For examples, look at the ESPACE Academy projects page.Click "Space Academy" at left and then click on "Projects" for ideas. Other projects are listed below. Projects marked with an asterisk* have been done by Deer Valley High School Students.

Here are some other research projects which "need doing." Are you up to the challenge?

Magnetic Field of the Earth
We have a 3-dimensional magnetic field sensor installed in a storeroom. Process this data and compare it to something such as the sunspot number, the time of day or even the cycle of lighting on campus and correllate the changes you observe to the real world. Difficulty: moderate

Radio Astronomy:
Help us get the DVHS Radio Telescope installed, functional, and able to collect data. Difficulty: Challenging. For a more moderate challenge, borrow our *Radio Jove kit and do some data collection.

Weather Tracking:
Build a receiver to "listen in" to satellite transmissions of weather data, and create a project from it. Difficulty: Moderate.
http://www.wxtoimg.com/

Adopt a Polar:
Take frequent measurements of cataclysmic variable stars and submit observations to the American Association of Variable Star Observers. Difficulty: moderate.

*AGN Watch:
Observe giant black holes in the centers of distant galaxies, record their brightnesses and report these to the AAVSO. Difficulty: Moderate
http://gtn.sonoma.edu/public/

Transit Search:
Help discover new planets around distant stars by observing candidate stars for transits--causing them to dim slightly when the planet goes in front of the star. Potential discovery credit! Difficulty: challenging
http://www.skywokker.com/transitsearchobservingprocedures.htm

*Variable stars in globular clusters:
Globular clusters are packed with variables. Measure their periods and add to the growing database of observations. Difficulty: moderate

*Nova Search:
Participate in the NOAO's ongoing research into Novas in the Andromeda Galaxy. Difficulty: relatively easy to participate, challenging to innovate
http://www.noao.edu/outreach/tlrbse/research.html

*Mars Global Surveyor image analysis:
Can you determine the height of Martian sand dunes? What about those mysterious dark spots in some of the craters? Difficulty: Challenging
http://homepage.mac.com/dvhscience/SpaceAcademy/Projects/mgs.html

Asteroid Occultation:
Observe an asteroid as it goes in front of a star. Timing is critical, and access to a telescope required. Difficulty: moderate
http://www.asteroidoccultation.com/

*Parallax to the Moon:
Arrange simultaneous observations of the moon with schools across the country. Use simultaneous photographs to determine the distance to the moon. Difficulty: relatively easy. Follow the link for an example.
http://homepage.mac.com/dvhscience/SpaceAcademy/Projects/moonparallax.html

NASA Student Involvement Program:
Launch a payload into space. Seriously. Difficulty: Challenging
http://www.nsip.net/competitions/index.cfm

Enter a science fair or other science related contest:
Enter the Bay Area Science fair with any project and that will not only serve as your project (or your culminating project if you are an academy student) but it could also win you a prize...
http://home.pacbell.net/sfbasf/

Rockets can be a major project under the following conditions: If you're using off-the-shelf rockets they must be built according to specification and launched according to the National Association of Rocketry's safety guidelines. If you are building rockets larger than "D" class you will need to get your own independent approval from the fire department to launch, find a site, and record everything with video tape. You must also have a purpose beyond "pushing the button and watching it go," such as determining altitudes, testing designs, and so on. Many websites exist, but you might start with www.lunar.org, a web site for a major rocketry group in Livermore.

Outreach Projects: Communicate with the rest of the world what you have learned, and gather information about astronomy to share.

*Mt. Diablo Astronomical Society assistant: You must attend and assist for 4 meetings. Assisting means setting up for meetings, directing visitors, etc. Submit a 4-page report at the end of the semester on the content of the presentations. You have to include both the What's Up and main speaker topics. Give an oral report to the class after each meeting to tell us what you learned. Meeting dates are posted at: www.mdas.net. This is not a school sponsored meeting; it's just like going to the zoo.

*Make a video about an astronomy lesson or to help recruit academy students. For any movie project you should submit a script before starting to shoot. Content accuracy counts, and I must screen the video before it is shown over DVTV or elsewhere. In general, keep your message short and to the point. I am more interested in your ability to communicate clearly rather than your ability to use lots of tape.

*Interviewing astronomers has been done in the past, but you have two problems that need solving if you pick this project. You need to identify astronomers to interview (you need about 3 or 4) and you must submit a list of questions to me prior to contacting them for the interview. The best grades will go to students who do background work to find out what area of specialization the astronomers work in, and ask appropriate questions pertinent to their field.

*Light Pollution Advocacy has never been successfully completed. This project consists of three parts: first, you need to do a survey around town to show the various amounts of light pollution by using the technique of determining the dimmest star near zenith that can be seen, using star charts marked with magnitudes. Second, you need to find out the status of whatever ordinances our town has on this subject. Third, you must make arrangements to make a presentation or write a formal letter including the results of your study to the mayor and/or city council. Excellent resources exist at the following address: www.darksky.org.

NASA contests can be your major project if you clear your topic through me prior to entering, and you provide proof that you actually enter the contests. Rules and guidelines are posted at: http://www.nsip.net/download.cfm . Pay attention to deadlines--you must enter to complete the project. *Note last year we had a student selected for NASA SHARP as a summer apprentice at Ames Research Center in Mountain View.

*Building sundials can be a good project. You have basically have to meet two criteria: The sundial must work and correct for all errors to allow a user to read standard time from it, and it must be permanent and weatherproof in design. Two excellent resources include a book called "Sundials: Their Theory and Construction" by Joseph Waugh which can be found used at Amazon.com. Another excellent resource is the International Sundial Society's web page at http://www.sundials.co.uk/.

*Your observing notebook could double as your major project, but you have to do 200 observations instead of 100.

Building a telescope
is harder than it sounds. It could take months to do the job right. If you have the right parts for a reflecting telescope, you can build a functional telescope in a few weeks. If you build a simpler telescope, you might finish it in a weekend, but then you need to make several observations with it. Plans for one kind of simple telescope can be found at www.AstronomyTeacher.com, click on papers, and download the instructions you find there written by Scott Kardel. Chabot observatory offers a class in telescope building, but it can get pretty involved. Be sure you have no illusions about this being a simple project before you start it.

Building a cardboard planetarium is a good project. You can help us by constructing the dome or especially the projector described at this web site: http://www.cccoe.net/stars/. Take photos as you go along, critique our instructions to make them better, and be prepared to be grilled mercilessly about how you did it.

No Children's books please.

Participate in the Planetarium Outreach program. The Planetarium Production class goes to elementary schools and does shows on specific topics. You can assist them, by setting up, taking down, and teaching a little bit about the constellations you know. You must attend a training session hosted by the class and then work with them to schedule your site visit. You will need to obtain permission from your teachers to miss class the day you do your show.

Watch this web site for other ideas which will be posted as I grade more proposals.

2004-05 Major Projects

Major Project Ideas

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California Science Standards