Astro 101 Slide Sets
Instructor’s Guide
February 2015
About the Slide Sets
This series of slide sets is meant to bring recent NASA discoveries to the collegelevel non-major introductory astronomy classroom. An introductory astronomy
course for non-majors is often a student's only exposure to post-secondary science,
so we hope that including recent discoveries in that environment will help students
understand the excitement of the evolving field.
The Astro 101 slide sets compile short, topical presentations on new developments
from NASA SMD Astrophysics missions relevant to Astronomy 101 topics. We intend
for these slide sets to help Astronomy 101 instructors include the latest
developments (discoveries not yet in their textbooks) into the “big-picture” context
of their courses.
These slide sets have been developed in consultation with a panel of Astronomy
101 instructors, NASA science educators, and mission scientists.
Development and Coordination: NASA Astrophysics Science Education and Public
Outreach Forum
Slide Set Content
Each slide set includes three main components, Standard Content slides, Resources
slide, and Bonus Content slide, as outlined below:
1. The Standard Content is distributed over four slides, which are structured
the same across all slide sets.
 "The Discovery"
 "Discovery Method"
 "Big Picture"
 "How this discovery changed our view"
2. The Resources slide points the instructor and interested students to the
peer-reviewed discovery paper(s), NASA and mission-specific press releases,
interesting animations or graphics, and other relevant materials
3. Bonus Content is different for each slide set. This is a slide the instructor
may choose to include in his/her presentation because it gives some insight
about how science is done. Example bonus content may include: researcher
biographies and photos, novel observing techniques, or unique
collaborations.
Get the Latest Slide Sets
NASA Astrophysics Missions regularly report new findings. As time and resources
permit, we plan to post new sets on a quarterly basis. Please check back periodically.
New slide sets will be available at
https://www.astrosociety.org/education/resources-for-the-higher-educationaudience/.
Acknowledgements
The Astro 101 Slide Sets are a collaborative effort between members of the NASA
Astrophysics education and public outreach (E/PO) community and the NASA
Astrophysics Science Education and Public Outreach Forum. We also gratefully
acknowledge the Astronomy 101 instructors whose input on the needs of the higher
education community helped shape these sets.
Contributing NASA Astrophysics E/PO programs include those from the following
NASA Missions: Chandra, Fermi, GALEX, Hershel, Hubble, Spitzer, Swift, WMAP.
The Astrophysics Forum is supported by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate under
Cooperative Agreement NNX09AQ11A to the Space Telescope Science Institute,
Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum, and
Johns Hopkins University.
Contributing Team Members: Higher Education Liaison, Greg Schultz (Astronomical
Society of the Pacific); NASA Content Additions, Bonnie Meinke (Space Telescope
Science Institute), William P Blair, Luciana Bianchi (Johns Hopkins University),
James Manning (NASA Astrophysics Forum); Graphic Design: Pam Jeffries (Space
Telescope Science Institute).
Feedback
We welcome the feedback of instructors who have used the slides sets. If you’d like
to take a few minutes to tell us which ones you used, how you used them, and what
the outcomes were, and to give us your thoughts about them, we welcome feedback
at gschultz@astrosociety.org. And please look for a short survey here too.