Getting children and people interested in Astromomy

[JAG007]

A question about starting out in astronomy and getting children interested. On the BBC program Stargazing live they have produced a file on how to make your own telescope. You can view it here http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/tv/stargazinglive/sgl_telescopes_refractor.pdf .

Even though it is very basic it does seem to get an interest in astronomy to many people. I know children in particular are fond of making things and I would think that this gets the kids (and parents assisting them) away from computer games and interested in astronomy. What do the people in this forum think? Is it educational and informative or do you think that there could be a better way to start the interest?

John

[Siriusmeg]

Hello, I've looked at that but haven't tried it it - got the feeling that it might be harder than they make it look Worth a go though?

You could do worse than go outside with a pair of binoculars - my kids are perfectly happy lying back on a rug looking at the stars with binos.

[LukeSkywatcher]

I dont think that you can spark an interest in astronomy in anyone, unless they already have a natural existing interest. You can lead a horse to water but you cant make it drink.

If people show a natural interest, then you can certainly encourage it and help/educate them. I'd never "force" astronomy on anyone.

My mother who is 65 yrs old shows a passing interest so i do my best to educate her. My 9 yr old niece could not care less, so i dont bother.

[Phaylon]

Thats very cool.

I actually came across a similar article a few weeks ago and decided to make one for fun. And in the process of gathering materials I decided to take it to another level and make it a reflecting telescope instead. And I wanted it to do it for as low cost as possible. We have many "Dollar" stores around here that happen to have all the materials I needed. If anyone is interested I used:

- For the OTA they were selling these wine bottle gift boxes that were perfect 76mm inch cylinders aboiut 36cm long.

- For he primary mirror I found this women's makeup pocket type mirror thing. Really don't know what the ladies would call it, but it was a 76mm covex mirror.

- For the secondary mirror they happneed t osell this little bag if 1 inch oval mirrors. They were not mounted on anything just a bag of loose tiny mirrors in the crafts section for $1.

- Wooden dowls for mounting the secondary mirror

- And lastly a childs pirate toy set that happened to have a pirate style telescope included with the eyepatch and toy axe. it had no lenses or anything in, but I wanted to use the tubes to make the focuser. Its kind of like those toy light sabres that extend out when you swing them.

- Smme white craft glue (you probably have some aound the home already)

Now I was planning to use some old .965 inch eyepieces for it, If I was going to make it completely with things from the store, I would have picked up one of those eyeglass repair kits that include a small magnifying glass to use to make an eyepiece.

To put it all together I just looked at diagrams of how reflecting telescopes work and pictures of Newton's first reflector, and it all came together pretty easily. It is very straightforward. I would think kids would have a great time making one and since it seems much more complex than making a refractor (even though it is almost just as simple) they will feel like they just created something huge. The trickiest part is just figuring out the focal length of the primary mirror so you know how far away to place the secondary. (And that is still very easy)

All together it cost me under $10 canadian. And was definitely a fun little project. Still having some issues witht he lengeth of the focuser and getting it to a nice focus, but it does work. I will try to take some pics of it and post it later on.

[Phaylon]

sorry for all the spelling errors, I hope I can use the edit post function soon.

[lunarhoney]

From a young age I've always been sure to make my little girl aware of all things space related. I think that many children are naturally born curious, the only reason why they may not appear to maintain this curiosity later in life could be due to a number of things. But I feel that if it is maintained and encouraged then often they will continue to ask questions and be fascinated by the answers that they're given. 
I've always commented on how lovely the moon looks, and how strange it is to think that all of those little "oceans" are really large craters etc. I also think that allowing them to see space through the lens of a telescope is great, because it makes all the images in books suddenly become very real. 
 

[animaal]

If people show a natural interest, then you can certainly encourage it and help/educate them. I'd never "force" astronomy on anyone.

I very much agree with this. My youngest never expressed much interest, until I picked up a children's book in the library. It explained all about the moon - how it was created, what it's like on its surface, how people first got to it, etc. It had lots of pictures, written in simple english. She was amazed.

Some time later, I get a telescope for myself, and she wanted to look at the moon through it. There was great excitement when she saw the craters. I took a picture of it, got the picture developed, and she brought it to school to tell the class what she saw.

I thinik if I had ordered her to go out in the cold on evening, and told her to look through an eyepiece, there wouldn't have been much enthusiasm!

[dezzie]

I think actively encouraging kids is a good idea, anything that drags them from being square eyed in front of a telly playing video games is a bonus, I have to drag my girlfriends kids kicking and screaming to get them off there bums there addicted to these stupid games,  observatory is the next thing at my local club if I can time it with a clear sky!

[Schorhr]

Hi,

I second the ideas about encouraging the natural interest in things they allready are interested in (comets, moon, planets, galaxies, ...) and letting kids build stuff :-)

I tried building a shaving-mirror telescope as well. With one for €4 out of the drug store it worked up to about 10x. Secondary mirror was a 50 cent dentist's mouth mirror. Eyepiece was a €1 jeweler's loupe/magnifying glass with three lens elements.

I then got 5 €1 mirrors off eBay. They did not work at all, even though their focal length was rather long what should have compensated a bit for spherical aberration.

(Get an estimate of the focal length: Lay the mirror on the ground, and look down, move up until your image "Flips").

With the cheap mirrors everything was blurry even at the low magnification.

The moon at 10x with the other mirror was quite nice, though it showed two reflections. This is due to the fact that the mirrors are back-coated and not front coated.

I could not use the cheap mirrors for my astronomy class and the build with cardboard tube, aligning the mirrors and such was quite difficult.

For older kids there is a great kit from astromedia, they offer a cardboard newtonian kit with a real 70mm mirror (stepped down to 60mm) and even let you build two eyepieces for ~15 and 30x! It takes a whole evening to build though, even with fast drying glue.

Now I read around and found other interesting approaches. One I really like is the reading glasses telescope, as I have mentioned across the forum a few times.

With a dollar-store reading glasses you have two lenses that will work up to around 20x/30x, a bit more but it will get a bit dark and color fringe shows as it's a simple lens.

As eyepiece I once again used the jeweler's loupe. Those things are quite amazing given the price. A bit difficult to find the right distance for the eye but nice wide angle views.

Also you can just use a piece of cardboard and a pinhole and even "zoom", but you only see the field through the lens.

It's a nice kit to explain telescopes and affordable (~1€ if bulk ordered) so every kid can have one.

http://www.ringohr.de/tmp6/lesebrillen-teleskop/

This is still in a cardboard tube, you can build it with pipes from the hardware store instead.

Also you can use bright LEDs behind pinholes or lasers and cut lens-shapes out of jell-o (better use gelatin or agar without sugar as it refracts the light). The beams will actually focus/spread depending on the shapes and focal lengths.

You can also put cellophane wrap over a glass and poor gelatin/agar on it, making a simple clear lens that will slightly magnify newspaper text for example.

Another thing that's nice to build is a spectrometer. All you need is cardboard and a old (re/writable) CD.

http://www.ringohr.de/tmp6/cd-spektroskop/index.htm

You can show them how different light sources emit different light spectrums, and along with explaining them the doppler effect, you can explain them the theory about the expansion of the universe and what Mr. Hubble observed. You can also explain them how we know what's inside the sun, and how we can now observe other planet's atmosphere by watching their home star...

Even radio astronomy is possible. A multi band receiver for a few bucks and a long wire pick up sun storms, radio emissions of Jupiter and even some "milky way noise". But this is more abstract, either for older kids or some that are really into it.

While at it, wrap 50 meters of fine coated wire around a box and plug it into an old computer with sound-card to detect very low frequencies. Anything from sun storms to radio signals to cow fences ticking and distance lightning. Close lightning will damage the computer though.

For that attach a metal coat hanger to inside a window handle, attach a multimeter, set it to the most sensitive setting, and attach to it and the other lead to the radiator :-)

The analog variant would be an electroscope (jar, paperclip, tinfoil leaves...), but it's not as sensitive.

Sun observation is a bit tricky, especially with younger kids. Get a long cardboard box and make a pinhole at the top, and at the side near the bottom a window to look at where the light falls onto the other side of the box. If the box is long enough you can see a tiny sun and perhaps sun spots.

There are other variants with sun projection or sun filters, but allways risky that kids look into the sun without protection...

Oh, and speaking of pinholes, you can turn a whole room into a camera obscura with tinfoil and broad tape.

[ronin]

Well making a scope is good for them, but if they have come to an astronomy night they want to look through a scope. To an extent one is mechanics the other is astronomy. To kids astronomy is looking at Jupiter, Orion Nebula, Moon, Little Green Men.

Next is assume the little whatsits know a lot.

As LH said they will absorb information, they will also ask questions. Someone recently posted about a session at an infants school, the kids (or some) knew we had a massive black hole at the centre of the milky way. So take that as level of knowledge at infant level. And they don't mind asking questions, so go armed with encyclopedic knowledge.

Using binoculars on the Moon is probably a good idea, it's big and bright. Print off a few Moon maps for them to refer to as well.

If using binoculars for some then also a few simple constellation maps (by hand, A4 sheet in Word) with some globular clusters marked. They can spend time finding these.

[LightInsomnia]

Superglue on the eye piece... "just come and have a look at this!"

On a serious note...as previously said. I think people have to have that curiousity to be interested in anything

[Chris Rowland]

What an evil idea.  Are you really the sort of person who gets their kicks think about destroying someone's eyesight?

[LightInsomnia]

What an evil idea.  Are you really the sort of person who gets their kicks think about destroying someone's eyesight?

Yes, I'm afraid to admit. Yes...yes I am. They'd get to observe forever. Like a full time hobby