Well what would I want to be shown and told about---re Cosmology--if I were a 15 years old?
I would want to learn about all the new technology INSTRUMENTS, both orbital and on (and under) the ground. that are flooding cosmology with an almost overwhelming tidal wave of data.
If you start reviewing the different categories of instrument you familiarize me (in a PRACTICAL way) with the theoretical context in which you work.
we have to have infrared telescopes because lightwaves get stretched on their way here, by the distance expansion. WE SEE STUFF in the longer wavelengths.
we have to have composite mirror telescopes and space telescopes to resolve very dim stuff, stuff at unprecedented distances
we see in microwave wavelengths, there is visible light from hot gas from so long ago it has gotten stretched out to microwave and we see important patterns of density waves and fluctuations in that that light-turned-microwave.
there are neutrino instruments, there are gammaray burst instruments, there are suites of instruments that work together, automatic robot observatories always looking for supernova explosions---because statistics matter too.
there are spread-out instruments: widely separated dish antennas, and other detectors, fields of detectors.
there are instruments that see atmospheric cerenkov fireworks SHOWERS caused by a single high energy particle and so reconstruct the energy and direction of the particle.
there are instruments that see very distant quasars (black hole beacons) etc. etc etc-----oh yes and all the stuff in ORBIT, some around Earth some around the sun (like the CMB mappers)
So for starters I would want a SLIDE SHOW of all the new technology instruments.
That first day presentation explains why cosmology is a HOT FIELD, because of a flood of new kinds of data, seen with a lot of new types of eyes.
A. describing the instrument is a way to introduce ideas (like expansion, early universe, standard candles, redshift-distance (or luminosity), acoustic waves, weak lensing eyes that see DM) in PASSING. you can refer in passing to all these interesting contextual conditions
B. describing the instruments is a huge SALES PITCH for why the field is interesting because it has all this NEAT STUFF. You need to generate intense interest among the 15 year-olds so they will come back eager the next day. so show them slides of the hardware.
C. describing the instruments is a door to the EPISTEMOLOGY of the field. it is about fitting models to data. it is not about KNOWING THE FINAL ANSWER to every question. every model will have unanswered questions. what matters is getting the simplest best fit. and you are in the middle of a huge flood of data which you have to channel into models, some of the models get busted in the process and washed away.
it is not about what you "believe" but about how well you can anticipate the next wave of information, the next higher resolution composite mirror telescope or space telescope, which models continue to predict best, where they are applicable and how to fix them where they fail to apply and develop glitches breakdowns (singularities.)
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Maybe what I've said is obvious and didn't even need to be said. Theoretical cosmology is a very OPEN rapidly evolving field because of all the new observational data from new, more, and better instruments
Oh, there is also the computer simulation business. show them video or movie on the second day, of cobwebby structure formation. Like Smoot's TED talk about DM condensing into filamentary structure in early universe and forming the basis for baryonic matter to gather into clusters of galaxies
The visual aspects of the observational and numerical simulation foundations that theoretical cosmology is BASED on will make a lasting impression. In that sense you will have taught them a lasting lesson in the first two days. Even if they don't fully understand the current models you introduce later, they will have learned something.
then you have three more days.
Or maybe do the visual stuff in the morning of each day, and then get to the modeling after lunch. That way they have something to expect, look forward to, starting at 8AM each morning, and they get jazzed up, and their minds get a lot of questions. then after lunch you cover more theoretical more mathematical stuff.
Supernovas are very very important (standard candles) for cosmology. Maybe early in the week devote lecture and blackboard time to the different types of SNe, not just the standard candle type IA.
understanding redshift-luminosity relation or redshift distance relation, and how this is influenced by H leveling out at a positive H∞ instead of going all the way to zero is important.
So one afternoon could be describing the various stars, and monster explosions which serve as standard candles, and how they work, and incidentally how some other similar things work, like black hole beacons
and another afternoon could be about the redshift distance relation and the 1998 type IA SNe data and all that.
they've got to understand that H is CHANGING. and how that change generates the distinctive slope and shape of the redshift distance curve.
or maybe that is too hard.
anyway those are my thoughts===possibly more reaction than you wanted. other people should respond, to get different perspectives.
interesting challenge. 5 days 8AM to 3PM, with lunch and breaks probably at most only 5 hours a day, so teach cosmology to 15 year-olds in 25 hours. heh heh
will they be video-recording the lectures? very challenging. if it is at all successful they will wish they had recorded it.
