Our projects are designed to teach astronomy interactively, using the tools that professional astronomers use. All examples in these projects are taken from real stars and galaxies as seen by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the most detailed survey in the history of astronomy.
These pages give information on how to use SkyServer’s projects as an interactive lab in your science class. The projects were designed to be done individually, but they can be done in teams as well. Each individual or team will need a computer with Web access. The table below gives an overview of each project. Click on the project’s name for more detailed information.
SkyServer Challenges are designed to stretch the students’ thinking with difficult questions and long-term projects. These challenges are even more extensive that the Research Challenges at the end of the other Projects.
Many of these challenges are ideas that SDSS astronomers thought of, but haven’t had the chance to work through yet. So when your students finish a challenge, their results might be used by SDSS astronomers to advance their research. If you want to make a genuine, original contribution to the future of astronomy, this is the place to do it!
Click a name or image to choose your challenge: