Expanding Universe Activity

Rob Knop's Astronomy Education Resources

In this activity, we model the Universe as a bunch of paperclips (each representing a galaxy) on a rubber band. If you stretch the rubber band, the paperclips all move apart from each other showing a characteristinc uniform expansion.

More description needs to be written. In the mean time, we have:

• Instructions
• Expansion Data Table and Graph
• Talk slides to go with the activity : ODF – PDF

Here are links to the movies that are shown in the talk slides:

• 2d expanding universe (colored dots)
• 2d closed expanding universe (sphere)
• cosmological redshift

(ODF is "OpenDocument Format"; these slides are OpenDocument Presentation format. This is the format used by OpenOffice.org. The PDF files should work on any PDF reader, including the Adobe Acrobate Reader.)

When I've used this activity at teachers' workshops at Dyer Observatory, I've also put my foot in it by pulling out some of my Slides on Science & Religion.