Web Seminar

For those of you that do not know this, the physical science class did not meet on Thursday in the classroom; instead the majority of the class had class online. A web seminar was being advertised and Dr. E really wanted us to be able to participate in it so this is where we spent our Thursday class period. I was able to easily access the web seminar whereas some of my fellow classmates found it extremely difficult. After logging on, the main person in charge greeted everyone, answered any questions that anyone had, and then immediately started asking questions to try and get to know us. Participants were permitted to look at the web site or do whatever they desired for about a half hour while other individuals tried accessing the web site. Soon after the half hour, the web seminar started in which everyone was asked particular questions and the answers were then graphed for everyone to see the results. Then the seminar began where the students learned interesting facts about stars the sun, and planets. I knew some of the simple facts such as the sun is five billion years old and stars do not move around in space in zigzag patterns. On the other hand though, there were also quite a few things I did not know: scientists classify stars based on their spectra, there is a point where a star needs a lot of light, atoms and molecules in the cooler outer layers absorb light so we can observe an Absorption Spectrum, when you are looking at a star there is a certain signature scientists look at to categorize them, planets form around stars form accretion of smaller bits after the central star forms, or from a clump orbiting the main star, and finally astronomy is a dynamic science; new discoveries add to our knowledge of the universe and our own solar system. As one can see, I learned a lot of interesting information from the web seminar. At first I was really regretting having to watch the seminar for an hour and fifteen minutes, but once it was over I was pleased to have seen it. I really enjoyed changing up the class atmosphere and partaking in the web seminar instead of physically going to class. I hope that we are able to do this again sometime; I think the web seminar was a very good experience!