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Big History Project
Course: Big History Project > Unit 3
Lesson 1: How Were Stars Formed? | 3.0- ACTIVITY: The Life of a Star
- ACTIVITY: Infographic —Life Cycles of the Stars
- WATCH: Unit 3 Overview - Stars and Elements
- ACTIVITY: Unit 3 Vocab Tracking
- WATCH: How Were Stars Formed?
- ACTIVITY: Threshold Card — Threshold 2 Stars Light Up
- WATCH: Threshold 2 — Stars Light Up
- WATCH: Elements - A Brief Big History (H2)
- ACTIVITY: This Threshold Today
- ACTIVITY: DQ Notebook 3.0
- READ: Gallery — Structure in the Universe
- READ: Gallery — Stars
- Quiz: How Were Stars Formed?
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ACTIVITY: The Life of a Star
Purpose
You’ll be surprised to find out that you know more than you think about stars. A star passes through many different stages during its life. In this activity, you’ll use your knowledge and intuition to arrange a series of images that describes the life of a star from the beginning through to the end. You'll have a chance to see what you already know about stars before you watch the main talk video for this lesson.
Process
Download the the Life of a Star worksheet. Look at the photos of the different stages of a star's life in the worksheet. Work quickly to make your best guess. This activity will provide you with an opportunity to start thinking about the star-making process. Don’t worry about getting it 100% correct; you’ll dig into how stars form in more detail soon. As you arrange the images, think about the differences among them and what those differences might indicate about how old the star is.
Once you are finished, check the answer key to see if you are right. Don't worry about getting it right, you’ll dig into how stars form in more detail later in this lesson.
Want to join the conversation?
- In the article's picture, what are the black square things in the top right corner?(10 votes)
- The whole picture is a mosaic of separate images. The black squares are sections that are just missing images, where HST didn't take pictures.(11 votes)
- How does the nebula form stars?(7 votes)
- they have strong gravity that pulls clumps of hydrogen together to form what we call stars(4 votes)
- are the eagle nebula pillars made of gas? or are they a solid material?(2 votes)
- They’re made of dust and gas, so they aren’t solid pillars of anything.(3 votes)
- Wait, if a nebula is just dust, how do they make stars?(2 votes)
- Nebulae aren't just dust. They are dust and gas, the gasses being primarily hydrogen.(3 votes)
- Im in 3 grade do you think i know this already(1 vote)
- when two black holes come closet to one another why happens?(1 vote)