Lesson plan: Uncovering black holes

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Objectives

Students will:

• Explain how black holes are formed.
• Explain the behavior of black holes.

Standards

National Science Education Standards
Science and Technology, Content Standard E (grades nine-12)

High school students will learn that science often advances with the introduction of technologies. Solving technological problems can result in new scientific technologies and may extend the current levels of scientific understandings and introduce new areas of research.

Benchmarks for Science Literacy
The Nature of Technology, Designs and Systems (grades nine-12)

High school students will learn that the value of any given technology may be different for groups of people at different points in time.

Suggested time

Materials

CNNfyi article, "Black holes in a new light"
Internet access
Materials for creating diagrams

Procedures

1. Define black holes and discuss how they are formed.

2. Read the CNNfyi article "Black holes in a new light."

3. Discuss the statement by Timothy Kallman of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in which he says, "We often think of black holes pulling in matter, but actually what we observe with our current instrumentation is matter flying out"

4. Then ask the students:

• According to the article, how can matter escape a black hole?
• What type of matter is able to escape a black hole?
• In your opinion, is it important that some matter escape a black hole? Explain your answer.
• After reading the article, how, if any, has your view of black holes changed?

5. Brainstorm with the class for facts about black holes. Have a student create a list of all the facts on the board.

Assessment

Have each student draw and label a diagram of a black hole. Also, have each student write a paragraph describing the black hole's behavior.