This resource provides lesson plans in STEAM and SEL that are available to everyone.
The primary sources in this project, drawn from the collections at the Rockefeller Archive Center, include correspondence and diagrams that document the process of fabricating what became a 200-inch Pyrex telescope mirror. These sources can be used to strengthen critical reading skills, to support inquiry-based learning exercises, and to expose students to the stories of trial and error that lie behind most scientific or engineering breakthroughs. Students are encouraged to annotate in the margins in order to support the development of document analysis and critical thinking skills. This project contains a suggested exercise that builds on the themes of the primary source documents.
The 200-inch Hale Telescope (historically known as the “Palomar Telescope”) at the Palomar Observatory in California represents an amazing feat of engineeringand ingenuity, the result of decades of trial and error.The primary sources in this project describe the last great hurdle in the Hale Telescope’s construction: successfully transporting the 40-ton, 200-inch mirror and its packing materials from upstate New York to the top of Palomar Mountain in southern California. This project is designed for advanced middle school or high school students. It contains a suggested project that puts students in the role of problem-solvers, with students using the actual data points drawn from the 1947 primary sources. Students will learn how to work with a formula, and to manipulate the formula’s variables to achieve different outcomes.