Re: [Phys-l] astronomy activities

[John Denker <jsd@av8n.com>]

On 02/10/2011 07:49 AM, Anthony Lapinski wrote:

> A colleague who teaches in our lower school is looking for astronomy
> activities appropriate for 2nd graders. Does anyone know of ideas or
> online resources?

Well, the obvious idea is to (online or otherwise) find the
email address and/or phone number of the local astronomy club.

In all probability they have monthly activities to which the
public is invited, where they 
 -- use laser pointers to teach folks how to recognize
  the constellations
 -- let folks look through nice 7x50 binoculars to see things
  like Pleiades, Andromeda nebula, Orion nebula, crescent
  moon, et cetera
 -- let folks look through telescopes to see planets etc.

=====================

Also, in the non-online idea category, the #1 idea is to get
a copy of _The Stars_ by H.A. Rey and learn the constellations.
A cheap _red_ LED flashlight is nice, if you're going to use 
the book outdoors ... but not really necessary.

In case anybody asks why you might want to know the constellations,
here are two anecdotes:

Once upon a time, I was spending the summer at the Aspen Center
for Physics.  It's waaay up in the mountains, and it's easy to
get away from all light pollution, so it's great for amateur
astronomy.  I brought my telescope.  At the same time there
was a certain very smart very famous scientist there, who also
brought his telescope ... a very fancy telescope, probably ten 
times more expensive than mine.  The first time we went out
together, we wanted to look at M7, the beautiful cluster in
Scorpius.  I manhandled my scope to point in the right general
direction and started looking at M7.  He went to work aligning
his polar axis and zeroing his setting circles.  He was about
one tenth of the way through with the process when he realized
that I was able to look at the desired object without using
setting circles and without doing any kind of setup.  He gasped,
then asked how I could possibly do that.  I pointed to the sky 
and said it's right there, next to the tail of the scorpion.  You 
can see it right there, if you know where to look.  He said there 
are two kinds of astronomers.  He came to it via mathematics then 
physics then astrophysics.  He said I was the other kind, who 
came to it through H.A. Rey and stargazing.

He had (until then) thought of M7 as an abstraction, as a catalog 
object with numerical coordinates ... as opposed to a physical 
object that you could point to.

  BTW don't expect to be able to see M7 with your naked eye
  unless the conditions are verrry good.

================

Once upon another time, I was riding with a colleague coming
back from a day exploring the bayou country south of New Orleans.
It was late.  We were tired.  At one point I said to the driver,
I think you made a wrong turn back there.  We're going the wrong
way.  He gasped, then asked how I could possibly know that.  I
said "That's Cassiopeia over there.  I suspect that way is north."

He spent the next week calling me Mr. Cassiopeia Guy.