Christine Tsang

5/12/08
Block Iota

Scientific Literacy Graduation Portfolio Reflection

Through my years of learning science and math I know that I

have grown as a student. I have never done a project in math that

involved science. Math has always been about learning mathematical

equations and solving math problems. Overall math class mainly

focused on the subject itself. The focus in science class has been

learning about science concepts, like Newton Laws with some

involvement of math. This math and physics combined exhibition

shows my understandings of these two subjects. From the Eureka

Exhibition I was able to use math and science as a way to help me

better understand topics in society that I am not exposed to in my

daily life.

The Eureka Exhibition allowed me to research more about the

Milky Way galaxy. In the process of preparing for this exhibition, I

learned more than I expected of the Milky Way, and I also adapted new

skills in researching. In the beginning of the research, I started out

with just a topic and general ideas of what the Milky Way is through

what I heard as a child, but I had no idea on the specifics of what the

Milky Way galaxy was, like its structure and movements, and the

importance of it. As a child I always heard myths of how the Milky

Way came to be, but I never seemed to believe them. The myth was
about a wolf who continuously stole rice from a village. Then one day

the villagers decided to track down the rice stealer. It happened one

night where the wolf was seen stealing rice and was chased away. The

wolf flew up to the sky leaving bits of rice behind. The trail of rice

became the Milky Way.

During my research, being able to understand the concepts that

physicists explained was difficult because the level of studies and

words used are more complex. This created a challenge for me

because it took me longer to research. It was also complicated trying

to incorporate all my ideas into a write up including analysis with the

difficult text. From overcoming this hardship I learned how to manage

myself in completing the work and finding the strategy that best works

for me during research. Also I learned to rely more on books than

internet sources, since not all sites are reliable. I tried to limit myself

from using the internet for information and I ended up learning a lot

more from book sources.

The essential concepts and understandings that this work

demonstrates are based on the foundations of the Milky Way galaxy.

Since the idea of the Milky Way is general and there are many things

that could be discussed, I decided to focus mainly on the expansion of

the Milky Way galaxy rather than the rotation and the gravitational

pulls. This involved the scientists that were involved in discovering

the expansion of the galaxy, like Albert Einstein and Edwin Powell
Hubble. Through my studies I learned that Albert Einstein studied the

universe. He explored if the universe expanded or if it stayed

constant. But he ended believing that the universe stayed constant

(static universe). He later realized his mistake after Hubble proved the

expansion of the universe. Edwin Hubble proved the expansion of the

galaxy by observing the shifts of wavelengths of moving objects in the

galaxy. He created the Hubble Constant to show how the expansion is

calculated.

In addition to the scientific research, I explored how math played

a part of the Milky Way. I researched the trigonometric parallax, which

involves the rotation of the galaxy. As I researched about the math

concepts I became interested on how trigonometry contributed to

figuring out the distances of stars in relations to the center of the

galaxy. For example, when calculating the distance scientists use the

concept of triangles. They calculate the sides of the triangle and the

angle from two different perspective points, which determines the

shift. Rather than just learning about trigonometry with sine, cosine

and tangent in math class, I was able to learn about how trigonometry

contributes to universal findings, like calculating distances of stars and

planets in space (trigonometric parallax).

Even though the Eureka Exhibition is the last exhibition, I was

able to get a lot from researching and interpreting the difficult texts.

This exhibition was unlike the rest because everyone got to choose
their topic, which made me more involved in my topic. I felt like I was

able to learn more from doing my own research and connecting

everything I researched into one piece. This exhibition makes me want

to learn more about science related current events. The concepts that

I learned are relevant to my life and the world because learning about

our galaxy in space adds on to my prior knowledge. Now after

exploring the concepts of the Milky Way I feel that I know a lot more

than before. When people bring up the subject of the Milky Way it will

draw my attention and I would feel engaged in listening about new

ideas or adding on. This research shows the ideas of science to my

own personal understandings because from the research I learned how

the concept of the Milky Way connects to our society and further

scientific researches. What happens in the Milky Way galaxy may

impact the earth and our society.

Things like new discoveries of space or new invented medication

are something that I should be aware of on a daily basis. I want to be

able to learn more about it for interest purposes. It is just as important

as being aware of world news where things will eventually have an

impact on my life. From experiencing this exhibition I hope that I could

apply it to what I encounter in the future. It may apply to my future

studies or just future interests in general. My explorations affected the

way I understand myself and the world because the ideas that I

explored and ways of research may contribute to my future learning

habits and growth of researching methods.