Inspired by young astronomers

[Quatermass]

Well my granddaughter wanted me to go along to her school and do a talk on astronomy for her class so after much reminding and hassling I finally got round to going there. I went feeling tired, a bit grumpy with all this wet horrible weather, and not like the best astronomy teacher.

However when I got there I was greeted by such overwhelming interest and excitement for the subject that it brought me back to life again. Wow! these youngsters were so keen to learn more about there universe it was amazing! Lots and lots of questions came from every corner of the class room and as I showed them a collection of images of galaxy's and nebula I had taken over the years the response was wonderful.

It really did me the world of good to see so many youngsters keen to find out more and reminded me of how excited I was when I first got into astronomy. I hope to invite the teachers and class to our local astronomy group this month but so glad I went now, I think I learned a big lesson myself that day these kids are our future let's make sure we give them all the help they need to learn more about our universe.

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[Knight of Clear Skies]

Nice work. There is quite a lot of interest out there, which is good to see. One thing I notice is that science and technology articles quite often make it to the most-read sidebar on the BBC News website.

[Langy]

Excellent, it does take something to get up and talk to a group of people, let alone youngsters.

Hopefully that will help their interest as it's so much harder when they get to teenagers.

[rwilkey]

I do quite a lot of outreach work for the scout and guide movement and it always amazes me how keen these kids are, asking questions throughout.  And at a Brownie session last week one child was actually asking about the moons of Pluto, it's surprising how many kiddies are interested in this dwarf planet, luckily I was well versed in the moons of Pluto as I had just recently completed a presentation on it.  But the kiddies never cease to amaze me with their questions, so eager to learn it just makes you feel good inside.

[Quatermass]

Yes indeed you get quite a buzz from all that enthusiasm and energy and some of the questions had me stumped for answers. Hoping to invite them all to our astronomy society this month so they can make use of our telescopes and get to see some planets and deep space objects for them self's. :-)

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[jambouk]

I got given this tonight by a friend from work; her son had drawn it for me ("Jupiter James"). I can't wait to get a frame for it

JD

[Quatermass]

Nice one ;-)

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[AndyWB]

I went with my Dad to Greenwich last weekend, and he was quite curious to see the planetarium (so was I, but the night sky somewhere dark is better, we both thought). I think both of us were blown away by how little kids knew so much about space, and particularly the planets. They seemed much more knowledgeable about the order of the planets than most adults, for example.

Sidebar - but why is it that when people talk about the demotion of Pluto to being a dwarf planet, they never mention how Ceres was promoted (or at least, additionally defined) from being an asteroid - or how Ceres was regarded as a planet for the first 50 years? Thats fascinating!

On a more general note, since starting doing a bit of astronomy, I've been interested by the number of people who've asked me about it. Quite a number of my friends have asked to come out and take a look. That was a surprise.

[Quatermass]

My neighbour's have all been round and looked through my telescope at Jupiter and Saturn its great hearing there comments when they see Saturn for the first time ever :-)

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[jambouk]

I've made a simple A4 sheet I'm going to print out and give my friends kids; I'm no artist so can't draw them a picture in return for theirs, but I can show them some of the basic photographs I've taken:

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1673286/JupiterJamesphotographs.pdf

JD

[kaybee]

On a more general note, since starting doing a bit of astronomy, I've been interested by the number of people who've asked me about it. Quite a number of my friends have asked to come out and take a look. That was a surprise.

This surprised me too.  A good number of people have enquired about star charts I've had laying about on the side, then followed it up with "I love casual stargazing but I've never looked through a telescope... I'd like to sometime". 

~Kb