Investigating Astronomy

Investigating Astronomy is the first comprehensive astronomy textbook written specifically for high school students. This book includes all the major topics in an astronomy course with material to engage students in hands-on investigations and tools to help students learn in interactive and meaningful ways. The book also focuses on scientific inquiry; the process of making scientific claims and supporting them with evidence; and using scientific reasoning to justify and revise those claims.

Units include:

Unit 1 — Investigating Motions of the Sky
Unit 2 — Investigating the Sun-Earth-Moon System
Unit 3 — Investigating Planets
Unit 4 — Investigating Tools of Astronomy
Unit 5 — Investigating Stars
Unit 6 — Investigating the Universe

Each unit has a series of Explorations based on an Essential Question that guides learning. The Explorations prepare students for the unit Challenge, a project that makes use of all information presented in the unit.

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation (DRL-0352180).

Please note Investigating Astronomy was published in 2010. As such the accompanying website is no longer available and other web links may no longer work. Alternatives resources may be found on the Internet.