Alien Life

TES Teaching Resource of the Year - 2011

• 88 Miles per hour
• Alien Life
• Astronomy Master Class
• Celestial Wanderers
• It's full of stars
• Recreating the Big Bang
  

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Are we alone?

Lesson idea. This presentation looks at claims of alien encounters and at arguments on whether humanity is alone. It concludes with a probabilistic argument based on the Fermi paradox. This is lesson 6 of a series of 6 entitled Astronomy Master Class.

Teaching approach. This last of six presentations to recruit students for A level physics, is more light-hearted and simpler than the two previous resources. It considers the arguments around whether or not humanity is alone and includes an initial look at the bizarre nature of many of the claims of alien encounters - including a fictional one for good measure - before moving onto the more serious side of alien hunting. It concludes with a probabilistic argument based on the Fermi paradox.

Resource details
Title	Alien Life
Topic	[[Topics/Astronomy|Astronomy]]
Teaching approach	[[Teaching Approaches/|]]
Learning Objectives	Understanding that it is extremely unlikely that there is sentient life elsewhere in our solar system. Appreciating that the majority of "encounters" are almost certainly not real and some of the psychological and physiological explanations for this. Appreciating that microbial life may be much more common than sentient life, but is also much harder to find. Understanding the SETI organisation and what it has found so far.
Format / structure	A 26 minute narrated screencast which is part of the full, six hour 'Astronomy Masterclass'. Also supplied as a Prezi and a Acrobat file should you wish to do the presentation yourself.
Subject	[[Resources/Science|Science]]
Age of students / grade	[[Resources/Secondary|Secondary]],  [[Resources/KS4|KS4]]
Related ORBIT Wiki Resources	Astronomy Masterclass, It's full of stars, From Earth to Moon, Celestial Wanderers, Recreating the Big Bang, 88 Miles per hour
Files and resources to view and download	The Teacher's Notes are available here. The resources are available in a choice of formats Narrated video - 26 mins http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J9Q6NdqwXz8&feature=relmfu Astronomy Masterclass - Prezi Slide presentation - http://prezi.com/2hk390sfkqjh/the-astronomy-masterclass/ Acrobat PDF document - for session 6, use pages 201-234 of Astronomy masterclass.pdf at https://www.box.com/shared/aqnk3lvr09 (241Mb) TES Resources link - http://www.tes.co.uk/teaching-resource/The-Astronomy-Masterclass-6070303/ This also includes links to other YouTube videos.