New Astronomy Teacher here

[ollypenrice]

Although my real subject was English Lit I taught some 5x2 hour astronomy courses to adults at evening sessions at the school where I worked. I also offer Introduction to Astronomy courses at the astronomy holiday place I now run. I find the book Universe, by Kaufmann, very helpful with good graphics and the maths (I have to add the 's' being English ) boxed off for a 'take it or leave it' approach.

The key problem with taking observing trips is having activities for all. One shared scope only goes a short way. I recently got saddled with 30 French schoolchildren for an hour's session in French on solar observing with one solar scope. Bit of a nightmare...) Activities like sketching naked eye objects (asterisms, constellations) works well.

Estimating star colour on a scale from red to blue.

Estimating angles between stars.

Splitting double stars naked eye, maybe?

Measuring the length of the sidereal day using many nights' observation is a great way to show the power of averaged multiple observation. You only need a consistent visual point of reference for the transits. Each student can have his own. This then confirms the theory of the orbiting Earth.

Models are very powerful. I liked a white ball lit by a focused lamp beam in a dark room to show how the phases of the moon work. By walking around the lit ball you get to see its 'phases.'

Having worked in a school for a quarter of a century I know of only one type of telescope likely to survive. The refractor. It will do very well on the planets, which will be your main source of interest, and duly filtered will allow you to look at sun spots. In fact Solar Projection would be better in a classroom. You can photograph projected sunspots with an ordinary camera and watxch them evolve over hours or days. I would only recommend a refractor for school use. Teachers are too busy to collimate and schools are too rough for it not to be needed!

Anyone teaching practical astronomy will be well served by a green laser pointer but in your case I suspect it would be out of the question due to the density of air traffic. Pity, but away from LA it might be OK?

I think open days and nights are possible at Mount Wilson and you could terrify the current owners of Edwin Hubble's former house by leading the class up there on a visit!!

PM me by all means if you think I might have any useful ideas.

Olly

http://ollypenrice.smugmug.com/Other/Best-of-Les-Granges/22435624_WLMPTM#!i=2277139556&k=FGgG233

[Cloudwing]

Thanks for all the feedback! Sorry I haven't been on for a couple of days, er, weeks. =) I'll beseech the purchasing gods and see what I can get. (And I'm finding out that suddenly I have to run people down [literally] to get textbooks.)

[Cloudwing]

No edit button? Odd, maybe I'm just missing it. Olly, thanks for the offer of help! I might just take you up on it!

[Schorhr]

You can't edit until you have 250 posts (...I think), in order to avoid trolling and the like ;-)