Hubble Space Telescope 20th Anniversary

April marks the twentieth anniversary of the launch of the Hubble space telescope (HST). The HST, named after the famous American astronomer Edwin Hubble, was launched into orbit by the space shuttle Discovery in April 1990.

Although it was not the first space telescope, Hubble is one of the largest and most versatile, and is well known as both a vital research tool and a public relations boon for astronomy. The HST is the result of collaboration between NASA and the European Space Agency, and is one of NASA's Great Observatories, along with the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and the Spitzer Space Telescope.

Hubble's orbit outside the distortion of Earth's atmosphere allows it to take extremely sharp images with almost no background light. Hubble's Ultra Deep Field image, for instance, is the most detailed visible-light image ever made of the universe's most distant objects. Many Hubble observations have led to breakthroughs in astrophysics, such as accurately determining the rate of expansion of the universe.

ProQuest has created a BookCart learning activity to help your students with this month's topic—"Exploring Origins of the Universe." This and all BookCarts are complete one-stop learning activities for your students (lesson planning Word Doc).

This saves time for more teaching and learning that too often are consumed in non-productive searching and evaluating relevancy. Each Cart provides examples of essential questions that help students to develop critical thinking skills that are so necessary with the glut of dubious information posted on the Internet.

Each also includes student directions, related print resource call numbers, an optional quiz, and a 21st Century skills and literacy standard. BookCart learning activities include everything that students need to succeed in inquiry-based learning in one place. Contrast this to traditional research assignments where students have to corral and organize separate instructions and resources.

You can copy, edit, and adapt these models to differentiate instruction for your students. Learn how here, or see a short video.

Procedures for copying and editing ProQuest Carts:

• Logon to the eLibrary Science TEACHER EDITION.
• Click the BOOKCART ADMIN tab at the top of the Teacher Edition.
• Click the PROQUEST CARTS tab.
• Type "Exploring Origins of the Universe" in the SEARCH box
• Click the COPY icon (middle one) in the ACTIONS column to the right of this title.
• Click RETURN TO MY LOCAL CARTS.

Librarians or teachers can edit this BookCart to customize it for their students:

• Click the new BookCart TITLE with the prefix COPY OF.
• Delete "Copy of" and then type your name in the AUTHOR boxes and your initials in the EMAIL box (required info).
• Option: Edit any ESSENTIAL QUESTIONS for your students in the DESCRIPTION box.
• Option: Edit the existing STUDENT DIRECTIONS in the Description box.
• Scroll down and click SAVE.
• Click RETURN TO MY LOCAL CARTS.

Assign students to write a report of at least 150 words (or a presentation of at least seven slides) that cites at least four resources and addresses the following essential questions for critical thinking (you can add to or substitute others):

• What new telescope technologies have been developed to explore the Universe?
• Why is it important to continue exploration of space exploration?
• What recent discoveries create the possibility of finding life on other planets?
• How does space exploration technology benefit people directly?

1: Type "space telescopes explore the universe" in the Search box > and type "telescopes or universe" in the Document Title box.

2: Type "extraterrestrial life" in the Search box.

Use our custom ProQuest models for written and PowerPoint-style reports.