Suggested by Mike Reid
Hi, Jim and John.
Now, on to your astronomy club. We don’t have a model in place for collaborations with astronomy clubs, but I’m open to developing one.
The suite of activities you have planned sounds good. It’s not clear to me whether your club is available for night-time meetings, whether you can travel easily, or whether you have a budget. Making a few assumptions, I would suggest the following possibilities:
1. A trip to the David Dunlap Observatory in Richmond Hill. It has to be seen to be believed. It’s very cool.
2. Depending on the ages of the kids, you could get them involved in one of the Zooniverse projects (https://www.zooniverse.org/pr
3. Solar viewing during the day as we approach solar maximum over the next year or so. You could get them to build an easy pinhole camera using materials found in most kitchens. A map of the current set of sunspots is available here: http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov
Let me know if you need more ideas. I will think on it.
Mike
Suggested by Marten van Kerkwijk
Dear James, John, (CC John Percy, since he likely has a better sense of
whether my suggestions below would work)
…redacted…
More specifically on the Astronomy Night and the ideas you put on the
web page:
* I know one of my colleagues is trying to get “venus transit vieweing
glasses”, which he hopes to distribute. I’ll ask about the timescale.
* On Moon phases: for the older students, it may be fun to go further:
once they understand the phases of the moon, let them try other planets
(in particular Uranus).
* One nice movie from the Moon landings is “hammer and feather” (I show
it in my astronomy-for-poets classes…). Would be most fun to show
it and have a hammer and feather ready, so people can compare with how
it looks on Earth (both feather fluttering, and hammer falling much
faster).
* A good use of one of us astronomers might be for us to answer (a
selection from) the “Questions about space” sheet (and maybe award a
price?)
* For the scale model, I would definitely try to use balls rather than
drawings. Most people do not abstract 3-D all that well.
All best wishes,
Marten
Suggested by Yanqin Wu
(edited by Jim)
Jim & John,
it’s wonderful that you two are organizing this in Huron. I will definitely be there and help out…
a couple easy ideas:
1) i can give a short talk, say, 10 minutes, about the ~2000 extra-solar planets found recently, and can answer questions; i can give it twice if there are enough interests, but will need a large screen for projection.
2) we can have a projector (i can provide one) showing slides of different astronomical phenomenon (solar, lunar eclipses, lunar phases), and have two or three kids enacting the celestial actions. either Marten or me can organize this with kids in Mr. Snow’s class, or if kids in the club can do this, that would be even less work.
3) if there are computers on site that we can use, there may be apps online that are fun and engaging and astronomical in nature, but will need some older kids to do the staffing and explanation
4) ….redacted (see if we need it) …..astronomical themed food?
Best, Yanqin.
Suggestions by John Percy
Hi John and Jim,
I’ve looked through the stuff on the website. Here are a few ideas.
It would be great to have a family emphasis. You might find some ideas
on the website of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, who have
a “Family Astro” program.
Moon phases activity: a good classroom activity, but I’m not sure
how effective it would be in a non-curriculum setting.
Make and take: If you have any funds, you could get some of the
RASC starfinders and moon guides. They cost about $40/100. Or
the RASC may bring them. Otherwise for starfinders: we have
templates which could be used, if you can provide scissors.
Starfinders are great as take-homes.
Scale model of solar system: works great with rolls of toilet paper!
There are lots of activities on the ASP website:
http://www.astrosociety.org/education/activities/activities.html
Will there be a portable sound system, so you can do things in large
groups?
Meteorites: yes, I could bring some.
All your ideas look great.
If there was more lead time, you could maybe get other teachers to
exploit the cross-curricular potential of astronomy — to First
Nations studies, ancient civilizations, literature — and math,
of course.
A few other links:
- the ASP (as noted above)
- CSA: http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/educators/
- NRC: http://www.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca/eng/education/astronomy/index.html
That’s all for now.
John
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John R. Percy, PhD
Professor Emeritus: Astronomy & Astrophysics
University of Toronto
Toronto ON M5S 3H4 Canada
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