Recreating the Big Bang

TES Teacher of the year 2011 Resources
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Lesson idea. Lesson 4 of a series of 6 entitled “Astronomy masterclass” (SC0018).

Teaching approach. This presentation offers a tour of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and explains why it is worth spending money on one experiment. It then delves into particle physics, looking at sub-atomic particles to offer analogies for what these particles are. The session focuses on whole class^(ta) dialogue^(ta) and higher order^(ta) thinking skills as well as exploring scientific language^(ta). This 4th session and the 5th are together the most theoretically complex and they present challenges to young peoples world views. As such they are led as much by their questions^(ta) as by the presentation.

Resource details
Title	Recreating the Big Bang
Topic	[[Topics/Astronomy|Astronomy]]
Teaching approach	[[Teaching Approaches/Dialogue|Dialogue]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Higher order|Higher order]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Questioning|Questioning]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Whole class|Whole class]],  [[Teaching Approaches/Language|Language]]
Subject	[[Resources/Science|Science]]
Age of students / grade	[[Resources/Secondary|Secondary]],  [[Resources/Year 10|Year 10]]
Related ORBIT Wiki Resources	Astronomy Masterclass, It's full of stars, From Earth to Moon, Celestial Wanderers,
Files and resources to view and download	For session 4 of the Astronomy Masterclass, see p to 697 of the full PDF at https://www.box.com/shared/aqnk3lvr09

Teacher's Notes

Session 4 – Recreating the Big bang

This session looks at the structure of “Stuff” and goes well beyond GCSE level – starting with an overview of the “big bang” and attempting to explain what particle accelerators actually do.
• C.E.R.N. is funded by the EU to conduct experiments into particle physics. It is a great example of international cooperation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CERN
• People often read stories about the work of CERN and get very scared. “will they create another “big bang” and destroy the earth” is a common one... The big bang is very poorly understood by the public.
- Some think it is a TV show
- Some a “large explosion”
- Some think it is some incomprehensible science thing...
- Some even think it is a Korean Boy Band
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Bang_(Korean_band)
- Even pop stars get it wrong
Video - from the TED technology conference from a few years ago.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TED_(conference)
- So what is it then?

Two key pieces of science to understand

Heinrich Olbers (may have been mentioned in session 1)
• Olbers Paradox
• Space not infinite http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olbers'_paradox
Edwin Hubble
• Recession velocities of galaxies
• Everything moving away from everything else
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubble's_law

The Universe is expanding – and so MUST have had a “start” point where everything was very squashed up Video – A small boy gets depressed about the end of the Universe
- Back to Einstein
Video – Dr Emmet Brown and Marty McFly discuss Energy. A Jiggawatt is a Corruption of a Giga Watt.
Energy and mass equivalence
E=mc2
There is no difference as far as the universe is concerned between heat and chairs. It is all just a different form of energy.
• Sometimes useful to recap the “nine” types of energy they met in KS3 and then add the 10th “mass”
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass%E2%80%93energy_equivalence
- So at the start of the universe there was a very high density of mass/energy.
• What does density mean
- Video - is from US show Mythbusters to demonstrate Density – Do not try it at home!
- Video - Official CERN intro video – they collide particles together at high speeds to squash them up to recreate these very high densities and then watch what happens. It is not true to say they smash up atoms to see what is in them – more they create particles from (kinetic) energy.
- Note - this video is fairly dated now and I need to find a newer one! – suggestions welcome
So what have they found?
• Soft toy particles from www.particlezoo.net
• Also a free iPhone/iPod app detailing them
• Everyday matter made of just 4 building blocks.
• Electron, neutrino, up and down quarks
- Proton is UUD
- Neutron is UDD
• But there seem to be 2 heavier families of particles that we don’t see any more in our universe
• 4 more quarks
• 2 more electron equivalents
• 2 more neutrinos
• Together these all make up the standard model.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_Model
- They all have different masses from the lightest (more stable) to the heaviest (least stable) however to make the biggest particles you need the biggest machines.
 ? next to dark matter and higgs boson as no one knows exactly what they are yet.
- However that is not all
Video - Toy story clip showing the dark side vs. the light side – (take off of the fight scene in Star wars VI)
- Antimatter exists
If an anti up quark meets and up quark they annihilate each other.
Big question as to what has happened to all the anti matter in the universe – why are we matter dominated? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antimatter
- Only one particle from the standard model remains to be found. In theory it should exist and IF it can be found then it validates the whole theory. If it is not found... then everything else may be wrong! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson
Video - Final clip from the Big Bang Theory showing how difficult it can be to find a Higgs Boson

End of session 4

Useful cloudy weather applications

• Make a movie challenge
- Explain something you have learnt about space so far
- A dramatic recreation of landing on the moon
- A future trip to mars