Final Thoughts

As you’ve completed each step of your search for other worlds, you’ve taken time to document your thinking. Relive this journey by looking back through the ideas you’ve recorded. What have you learned? How has your thinking evolved? Please record your current thoughts about the following questions.

1. You’ve used two key scientific tools in this project – measurements and models.

Based on your experiences…
a. Describe some of the successes and frustrations you felt as you did your transit measurements.

b. Think about one specific model you used during this project (it could be a physical model like a lamp and ball, or it could be one of the computer models). Describe two ways the model is similar to the real thing and two ways it is different.

c. Models are simplified versions of real phenomena. That means they don’t show you exactly what happens. Why, then, do you think scientists use them? What are they good for?

2. Describe something you learned in this project that you didn’t know before.

3. What are your personal feelings: Do you think there might be another Earth out there? A planet with a diversity of life (including intelligent life) like our own? Explain your thinking.