Showing the Kids at School

[Darryls]

I have been asked to bring my telescopes to a local school and let the kids look through them.  But this will be during the daylight hours!  So I thought about using a white light filter to let them see sun spots, and maybe another scope pointed at the moon.  Their teacher also asked me to "tell them about it."  Any ideas? TIA

Darryl

[bingevader]

Be careful!

What ages are the children?

Take all the usual precautions you'd take when looking at the sun.

You're already using a filter and not projecting the image, so that's good.

Completely cover or totally remove the finderscope.

Using the 2 'scopes is a good idea to prevent any confusion.

But, spell out the dangers and keep the lunar 'scope manned at all times to prevent any chance of it being moved.

How long have you got?! They could do a whole project on either the sun or the moon, not just one session!

Children love facts, so just bombard them with loads of info: First telescopes, biggest telescopes, different types.

With the sun and moon, Yes, talk about kilometres and astronomical units, but also put it into language they'll have more of a chance of understanding.

Comparable distances: How many times would you have to fly round the earth to get to the moon?

How many earths would fit across the diameter of the sun or fill the sun?

The age of the sun and different types, CME and aurorae.

The different sides of the moon, its tidal effect, craters.

There's a good experiment somewhere, with different coloured powder paint in layers that you drop marbles into to show the effect of impacts.

You should be able to keep them satisfied fairly easily on one visit!

It would be lovely however, to follow it up with an evening session if it's possible.

Cheers

[spaceboy]

I would give it some thought with the teacher as to if the children are of a responsible age to understand the dangers of looking at the sun before you show them you can look at the sun with a telescope. You would also need to know the whole class is paying attention and there are no day dreamers who don't fully pay attention for what ever reason and automatically assume it's ok. Most people on the lounge will have their doubts about Baader film etc because as kids it is drilled in to us to never look at the sun.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

I did a strictly solar session at my sons' school with APM 80mm with Herschel wedge, and the LS35 for H-alpha, both mounted on the Great Polaris EQ mount (with RA motor, so it tracks). Before the kids were allowed near the scope I gave them a short lecture on the dangers of solar viewing, including a graphic description of what could happen to your eyes if they did not do exactly what I told them. That worked well. I personally would man the solar scope myself, and have the teacher man the lunar. If you have tracking mounts, so much the better, as little adjustment during the session will be needed.

[jnb]

Consider using a digital eyepiece and a PC to show them the sun. It adds another layer of safety and doesn't send out the message that you can look at the sun through a telescope.

You must be able to "tell them about it" because if you don't plan for that it will be cloudy.

Find out how long the timeslot is. Turning up with a 45 minute talk and finding you have 15 minutes (or vice versa) will be a problem. I'm putting together a talk for KS2 kids at the moment and it is basically 20 minutes of power point, power point really being used as something to embed videos and a bit of music (mostly silent though while we talk over it) followed by an open ended questions and answers and observing session. In the absence of an observing session letting the kids look over the telescopes is still worthwhile but extra videos and activities would be good. If you have a question and answer session then work out what to do when you say "any questions" and are met by resounding silence.

ESA, NASA and JPL have good (and often copyright free) resources for exactly this sort of thing

But the most important factor is age group. 

[Darryls]

Wow lots of good points and ideas!  I will need to contact the teacher and make firmer plans.  These kids are 9 years old.  Thanks so much everybody!

[bingevader]

Oh, I forgot eclipses!

9 years old is our year 5 in the UK.

They're more than capable of understanding the risks and will get an enormous amount out of it.

They're obviously not all going to be out at the same time, so as long as the groups you take out are small, I don't see why not.

Big chat in class and then the rest of the morning/day (how ever long you have!) taking small groups out to observe.

Or as jnb has said, if you could do the solar observing remotely, that'd be even safer.

But nothing beats actually seeing it for yourself!

Be prepared to answer lots of questions.

[Darryls]

Thanks to everybody.  The "show & tell" went well.  It was supposed to be one class of about 25 9 year old kids, but the other two classes piggy-backed on the demonstration, so there were about 75 kids total!  The teachers have done a good job with the kids teaching them about the sun/moon/planets in the previous two weeks, so they basically just wanted to give the kids a chance to look through a telescope.  I set up two, and each kid got about 30 seconds at the eyepiece on each.  Most kids could see the sunspots in one and moon in the other quite well, although some (about 7 of 75) never could get a good look.  Some (about 15) immediately said "wow, cool!"  At one point, the sun was interfered with by the very top of a pine tree - could have done better planning there I guess.  I just did my best to point the mounts north, and then accepted the two-star alignment without any adjustment.  Both tracked well enough that I only adjusted them twice during the whole 45 minute session.  Each class of about 25 kids was lectured to for about three minutes about the dangers of looking at the sun.  "How long can you look at the sun without going blind?"  "These telescopes magnify the sun 40x, so now how long?"  I think they got the message that they would be instantly blinded if the look at the sun through a telescope.  Amazingly, in one class, a little girl raised her hand and said "unless you have an appropriate filter."  Smart kid!

[bingevader]

Well done Darryl, I'm glad it went well. 

I'm sure there'll be a request for a repeat performance.

[Dave Lloyd]

Our granddaughter is 4 and my wife has asked me not to use the scope in her presence during the day. I think she's worried that although I would take great care in showing her the sun she might think it's o.k to look at the sun through a lens. In a couple of years we're sure she'll be o.k. In the meantime she loves the moon.

[jnb]

Our granddaughter is 4 and my wife has asked me not to use the scope in her presence during the day. I think she's worried that although I would take great care in showing her the sun she might think it's o.k to look at the sun through a lens. In a couple of years we're sure she'll be o.k. In the meantime she loves the moon.

and I agree with her. What you tell people and the message you send are not necessarily the same and sometimes it takes someone else to point that out.

[michael.h.f.wilkinson]

Glad to hear it went so well. Great work!!