Short talk to 9 year olds

[Peco4321]

My son is currently in year 5 primary school, and is being taught about the Earth and the Universe in science. Obviously I am over the moon with this and he has told the teachers of my hobby.  They have now asked me to get in touch to arrange a short talk about Astronomy. 

I'm really keen (however my son thinks I'll bore everyone!). Think I will take my scope and books and bins and red torch etc as props and keep things nice and straightforward and cover the following:

A bit about how telescopes work

Set the scene about the Sun, the planets, our solar system and the Milky Way  

Discuss a bit about the stars and constellations  

Touch on other galaxies and the scale of things 

I have lots of images I have taken I will be able to put up on a screen as well and want to ignite a few sparks so will be throwing lots of 'wow' facts in there.

So that's the plan, going to start drafting some bullet points so any further suggestions would be welcomed  

 

[Mark at Beaufort]

Peter I have given a few talks to school pupils both primary and secondary. One thing that they enjoy is the size of the solar system by creating a scale model. They also enjoy a video showing the relevant sizes of the stars - some good videos on you tube.

[kev100]

Hiya,

I did a talk recently for the local Cubs and Scouts group. What really went down well was the old 'if the earth was the size of a cherry tomato ...' routine. I had several pieces of fruit set up on the table. Even the group leaders were fascinated by the relative scales. As well as relative sizes and distances from the sun, I also talked about how long the pieces of fruit would take to orbit the sun. There's a useful sheet here: http://www.thatsnerdalicious.com/play-with-your-food/earth-is-a-cherry-tomato-in-the-fruit-solar-system/

 

Kev

[Peco4321]

Great ideas there for props. I can just them going home eating their peas and telling their parents how big the different foods would be ??. Thanks, will definitely use food props. 

[Putaendo Patrick]

You might like to include a little bit on space exploration, or at least just brush up on what's going where at the moment. I'm sure a lot of children will have heard of Tim Peake, so you may get questions on the ISS, and recent probes have also got quite a bit of coverage on TV etc. You may also get asked about extraterrestrial life so an exit strategy on this might be useful!

[Bob Howard]

When talking about the BIG scale of things, you could touch on the Hubble Deep Field image and then use THIS to show how big that area was when viewed from Earth.

[baggywrinkle]

If time allows and as it will be in the daytime set the telescope to look at some distant tree or object so they can appreciate what it does. But don't forget a small step for them to stand on..

[Peco4321]

37 minutes ago, Bob Howard said:

THIS

That is amazing. Thanks. 

[Mark at Beaufort]

59 minutes ago, Bob Howard said:

When talking about the BIG scale of things, you could touch on the Hubble Deep Field image and then use THIS to show how big that area was when viewed from Earth.

That is very good - not seen that before.

[martin_h]

I did a talk to the local cubs/ scouts and used a hula hoop for the sun a marble(blue) for earth and the head of s dressmakers pin for the moon.

We are running  beginners sessions at the local Astro club and have invited teachers from the local primary schools... Be interesting to see how many turn up.

[Peco4321]

2 hours ago, kev100 said:

here: http://www.thatsnerdalicious.com/play-with-your-food/earth-is-a-cherry-tomato-in-the-fruit-solar-system/

On that scale, would the sun be about the size of one of those space hopper things 

[martin_h]

 

[clarkpm4242]

That is a very long list for a short talk to 9 y.o. audience.

'Less is more'.

All the above is good stuff, especially models/planets.

Teach them...my very easy method just speeds up naming (planets).

 

Cheers

[barkis]

I agree with the not too much at once suggestion. Kids can get bored pretty quickly if they have difficulty 
in understanding what is being  talked about. Get them involved quickly, by asking them a few questions, to test their 
knowledge on the sky and it's  objects. Praise those who get questions right. They love being right kids .
Well done on accepting the Invitation, I think you will get a thrill from it for sure.
 

[Bob Howard]

1 hour ago, Peco4321 said:

On that scale, would the sun be about the size of one of those space hopper things 

WAAAAAY bigger than that...

[ollypenrice]

One that never fails for me is a demo of the phases of the moon. Dark room, large white ball (the moon) and torch (the sun) pointing at the ball. You then get the children to walk around the ball so they can see the phases of the ball-moon.

Children are open minded so this is the perfect age to introduce relativity. What can be more misguided in education than to wait till children have developed common sense which leads them to reject the idea? A certain Albert Einstein said that common sense was the name given to the set of prejudices accumulated by age eighteen. Get in there first!

Olly

[saac]

Peter - keep it simple, don't be tempted to cram too much in.  Pick one main theme for your talk and concentrate on that, you will be surprised how quickly a one hour lesson will fly by - especially if you included any practical element, say getting kids to look through the scope or build a solar system model.  Good luck, you're going to enjoy it, it's a wonderful experience.

 

Jim

[Peco4321]

1 hour ago, Bob Howard said:

WAAAAAY bigger than that...

4m wide, wow. Will have to get them to imagine a huge thing as big as the classroom wall. 

[Peco4321]

Great advice pouring in, thanks all. Definitely going to keep it simple and keep to a few things that they can easily go home and tell their parents about, and even show them. So the constellations and planets I think, and how vast it all is, the fact that all these stars they can see at night are in a tiny corner of our galaxy. 

Early days in thinking about this so more pointers welcomed. I've talked my boy round into the idea of me doing this, but I have to change my name!!

[Bob Howard]

Another good one is how loud the sun would be if we could hear it...

Have a read of THIS with the required reference material :-)

[kev100]

Hi. I can't remember exactly where I got the info, but as regards the size of the sun, I said it would be like a really large beach ball, about 4 feet across ... and held out my arms to give an idea.

[Knight of Clear Skies]

Good luck with this. I assume you'll have quite a limited time slot, so I'd recommend focussing on just one thing.

If you're interested, here's a couple things I prepared with talks like this in mind. This one has a video showing what's hiding in the familiar constellation of Orion (although I need to update it, as I have a re-processed version of the image), and this one shows a couple of galaxies relative to the apparent size of the Moon. I was thinking about simple things people could relate to.

 

[symesie04]

Not sure i would include to much on the workings of the telescope imho. Although im sure they would love to look through it anything more than just a very brief explanation of light bouncing off mirrors i think may bore them. You could of course pin up a small image of the moon say at the front of the class room and setup the scope at the back focussed on it (focus limits dependant) and that way they could actually get a feel for lunar observing.

[Pippy]

I'm just so amazed we actually do seem to have schools that have spacey/universey learnings ... that's sooooo good to hear about !

I have a neice in her 30's who attented a local school in her schooling days who sadly opted to have RE classes in which they managed to convince her that all this 'spacey stuff' was not really true (only found this out by what she was telling us was being taught to her)

 

[Hobbes]

I've tried a few thing over the years and have found the following general principles useful:

• Children (particularly boys) LOVE facts: i.e. Uranus spins backwards and on its side and is the coldest planet -224 centigrade
• Use lots of Pictures/images associated with the facts - helps those with a visual learning bent to engage with the talk.
• Keep a fairly quick pace.
• Allow time for questions (25%-30% there will be lots) but don't take too many as you go along as your time will evaporate. Try to keep track of who has already asked a question and not go back to them too much.
• Have fun