John Griffiths Astro Pages

GCSE Astronomy —

Coursework

GCSE Astronomy > [Detailed Course Breakdown]  >  Coursework >  Assignments & Homework

· Two pieces of coursework must be submitted and these will contribute to 25% of the total marks gained.  The coursework is normally handed-in to your tutor for marking around the Easter preceding the examination.

· It is a good discipline to try and get one piece of coursework well under way, if not finished, by Christmas.  This will relieve the pressure towards the final deadline.

· The area of greatest difficulty for students I have found, concerns the observational project.  Weather can be a real problem (not surprising in the UK) and so can be the whole discipline of observing the sky and recording what you see.  It does not come easily to everyone.  Your tutor will guide you through the issues involved.

· Try not to let the coursework become a chore — it is meant to be an area of the course where you can express yourself and enjoy the astronomy that comes out of it.  It should be as much fun as possible.

· The coursework is marked initially by your tutor.  It is then sent away to the exam board.

· You must choose the two pieces of coursework from two lists: List ’A’ and List ’B’.  See Specification pages 22-26.  NOTE that List ‘B’ is in two parts: List ‘B1’ and List ‘B2’.  You may choose your List ‘B’ project from either B1 or B2.

· List ‘A’ is an Observational project, and List ‘B’ is Graphical, Computational, or Constructional.  Both have equal weighting — in other words, all projects are equal.  NOTE — It is not essential to have access to a telescope or binoculars to do the observational part of the coursework — naked-eye observational projects are included, but if you want to buy a telescope or binoculars, you can find some guidance by clicking here.

· In addition to the lists in the Specification Document, Edexcel has introduced some further topics to choose from.  You can find these on the Edexcel website, or download as a pdf file.

 

· One area of astronomy now becoming easier is photography.  The advent of the digital camera has made astronomical imaging much, much easier and is, in fact, fairly straightforward.  I have included a special section on this site dedicated to straightforward astronomical photography.

· One of the most popular projects, chosen by over 40% of students, is observation of the phases of the Moon.  I have added a special set of pages dedicated to the phases of the Moon, and how to observe and record your observations.  Click here.

· The tutors have produced a “How to do projects” guide.  See following pages. Also, Edexcel has its own coursework guide. Download from here. (pdf)

· Finally, make sure that you don’t do two projects from the same list — one will not be marked and 12.5% goes down the drain!  It might seem that this is an almost impossible error to make , but it has happened more than once in the past few years.

· ...and finally, finally — students can suggest projects that are not on the list.  If you do this then your tutor will have to check with the exam board that the topic is OK.   This happened with one of my students in 2005/6 who asked to do a map of Mars rather than the Moon — it was accepted.

 

 

VITAL INFORMATION FOR ALL STUDENTS:

Failure to hand-in one or both pieces of coursework will seriously hamper your chances of a decent grade.  It is absolutely critical that you begin work on the two pieces as soon as possible and complete them by the deadline — Do NOT leave them until the last minute.

Take special notice of the marking scheme for each piece of coursework — this can be found in the Specification Document on the Edexcel website pages 20-27.   Your tutor will go through this with you in some detail, and arrange extra coursework sessions if required.

Image: Neptune by Hubble STScI

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Last updated Sep 25 2007