Oh no ! Bad astronomy

[saac]

22 minutes ago, PeterStudz said:

My daughter, Alice, is 13 next month. She tells me that at school she did something about the solar system & planets when she was about 10. Just a few lessons according to her. But absolutely nothing since. We are in England.

I was born in America and lived there until I was 7yrs old. Even at a young age I can well remember the school classrooms covered in space stuff - model rockets, posters of the moon, planets, solar system and mechanical orreries. As kids we were all over these things. I was about 5 and this would have been about 1968, so the reasons obvious. Space was cool and every kid was into it. 

But things are very different now. Eg I could tell that the main reason my friend’s daughter wasn’t interested is that she’d decided (probably yrs ago) that having knowledge of things like astronomy wasn’t “cool”. If she’d been taught it at school then it had been forgotten and deliberately forgotten too.

Alice does an after school club - “Space Club” once a week. Interestingly she is the only girl. Although what really got me was that last year Space Club almost didn’t happen, as some of the boys were teased for being “nerds” for just taking an interest and wanting to go. Alice got some of this (apparently from girls) too. Says a lot… I was not impressed!

And yet exposure to the basics is mandated by the national curriculum in England as pointed out by @Craney.   In Scotland the situation is somewhat different with respect to who teaches what subjects so I can't comment on what happens south of the border. 

Jim 

[PeterStudz]

9 minutes ago, Craney said:

 

Also, a science teacher at the KS3 level these days tends to be a non-specialist . Biologists are more numerous than Chemists, who massively outnumber Physicists.

 

I’m sure this is just a different way of doing things, but until my daughter went to school I didn’t realise that now it’s just “Science”. Rather than Biology, Chemistry and Physics which is the way I was taught many, many yrs ago!

[saac]

2 minutes ago, PeterStudz said:

I’m sure this is just a different way of doing things, but until my daughter went to school I didn’t realise that now it’s just “Science”. Rather than Biology, Chemistry and Physics which is the way I was taught many, many yrs ago!

I think in truth there is not much change. For junior years (Broad General in Scotland S1-S3) pupils tend to follow a science curriculum where the discrete subjects, Chemistry, Physics and Biology are taught separately. In S4 onwards - the certificate years - pupils will select at least one science subject to continue, most will continue with 2 and a few will take all 3. In the Broad General phase we are qualified to teach all 3 of the discrete subjects (the curriculum content allows this). Most science teachers will have taken all three subjects at Higher level and certainly all 3 at O grade or equivalent. In the senior phase only specialist subject teachers can teach Physics, Chemistry or Biology for which they need to have undertaken a qualifying degree. 

Jim 

[PeterStudz]

9 minutes ago, saac said:

And yet exposure to the basics is mandated by the national curriculum in England as pointed out by @Craney.   In Scotland the situation is somewhat different with respect to who teaches what subjects so I can't comment on what happens south of the border. 

Jim 

Of that I have no doubt. 

But when I was a kid something called “Space Club” would be absolutely rammed, certainly not struggling for numbers. A few of the Clubs, eg a bizzare chocolate cooking club, have a waiting list. 

Having said that, when I took the Dob to school, there were kids and teachers  coming out of the woodwork to look at Jupiter and Saturn.

[saac]

23 minutes ago, PeterStudz said:

Of that I have no doubt. 

But when I was a kid something called “Space Club” would be absolutely rammed, certainly not struggling for numbers. A few of the Clubs, eg a bizzare chocolate cooking club, have a waiting list. 

Having said that, when I took the Dob to school, there were kids and teachers  coming out of the woodwork to look at Jupiter and Saturn.

When you and I were kids we didn't have everything else competing for our attention that kids today experience. Creative cake decorating sounds quite appealing especially when you get to eat your homework   

Jim 

Edited July 9 by saac

[Zermelo]

5 minutes ago, saac said:

Creative cake decorating sounds quite appealing especially when you get to eat your homework

I bet the dog will still eat your homework.

[PeterStudz]

11 minutes ago, saac said:

When you and I were kids we didn't have everything else competing for our attention that kids do today experience. Creative cake decorating sounds quite appealing especially when you get to eat your homework   

Jim 

Or the conspiracy theories. The same teenager that I mentioned (it came up in the same conversation) did not believe that the moon landings happened. Although she accepted that the earth wasn’t flat!

Not decorating. Actually making chocolates from scratch. Yes, it does sound appealing! 

Edited July 9 by PeterStudz

[saac]

32 minutes ago, PeterStudz said:

Or the conspiracy theories. The same teenager that I mentioned (it came up in the same conversation) did not believe that the moon landings happened. Although she accepted that the earth wasn’t flat!

Not decorating. Actually making chocolates from scratch. Yes, it does sound appealing! 

That's exactly what they do, learn how to make from scratch, decorate, then sell to raise funds for school projects. Enterprising! Although now they would also probably show off their skills by making a Tik Tok video  

For the more interested junior classes we can take Olly's pencil experiment one step forward and have the kids measure either the diameter of the Moon or distance to the Moon using a 2p coin.  Even a Chemistry teacher could do this one

* either D or L has to be provided in order to calculate the other - Google is their friend! 

JIm 

 

Edited July 9 by saac

[Ratlet]

8 minutes ago, saac said:

That's exactly what they do, learn how to make from scratch, decorate, then sell to raise funds for school projects. Enterprising! Although now they would also probably show off their skills by making a Tik Tok video  

For the more interested junior classes we can take Olly's pencil experiment one step forward and have the kids measure either the diameter of the Moon or distance to the Moon using a 2p coin.  Even a Chemistry teacher could do this one

* either D or L has to be provided in order to calculate the other - Google is their friend! 

JIm 

As a fully qualified bucket chemist I find your comment highly offensive.  You've provided the picture and equation and I still don't think I can do it 😄.

I consider myself quite blessed that both of my kids are massive geeks.  My daughter is really keen on doing electronics with me, but I'm learning myself so I can't answer a lot of her questions.

[saac]

5 minutes ago, Ratlet said:

As a fully qualified bucket chemist I find your comment highly offensive.  You've provided the picture and equation and I still don't think I can do it 😄.

I consider myself quite blessed that both of my kids are massive geeks.  My daughter is really keen on doing electronics with me, but I'm learning myself so I can't answer a lot of her questions.

Hats off the Chemistry and Biology teachers they are the true scientists, Physics is just having a laugh and occasionally using maths to describe why we are having a laugh!  

Neither of my two girls got into science, despite me teaching my eldest in Higher Physics!  For some reason they loved history and that's what they followed.  There is something rather cool though learning from your children.

Jim 

[PeterStudz]

My daughter doesn’t like science (well, school science). But she loves astronomy and all things space. She doesn’t see astronomy as science. If I suggest it’s a science she won’t have it. Overall she is more into art subjects. 

This brings back memories. I was into both art and science. Interestingly I was terrible at Maths. My parents got me extra tuition just to pass O-Level Maths. But I loved Pure Maths and found A-Level Pure Maths a breeze. In fact the only reason I did O-Level Maths was because I needed it in order to take A-Level Pure.

[saac]

Science certainly is not for everybody, no different to any other subject in that respect I guess. I don't know why it is mandated in our system beyond S3, I really wish it wasn't. Kids know what interests them and they always find out what they want to do one way or the other.

Jim 

Edited July 9 by saac

[Gfamily]

4 hours ago, pipnina said:

What I'm hearing here is that we should create a light source so bright, that we can illuminate the surface of the sun and find out what it really looks like? 😛

You sometimes get a bit of this with binary stars when some of the light from the brighter one gets reflected from the surface of the other one. 

[ollypenrice]

10 hours ago, saac said:

 

Neither of my two girls got into science, despite me teaching my eldest in Higher Physics!  For some reason they loved history and that's what they followed.  

History? Tell 'em there's no future in it.

lly

[Craney]

33 minutes ago, ollypenrice said:

History? Tell 'em there's no future in it.

The one thing we learn from History ... is that we don't learn from History !!         (Hegel)

[AstroMuni]

14 hours ago, saac said:

How about parents take a wee bit of the responsibility instead of passing the buck. Just a thought. 

Absolutely agree. I feel that as a parent its our responsibility to expose our kids to the environment around us and build in them that innate curiosity to explore and understand it in their own way. We just need to foster that interest in them and support them where we can. The other major role we have is to make them self sufficient to a point where they can survive without us, but thats got nothing to do with science 🙂 

[JOC]

15 hours ago, saac said:

nd have the kids measure either the diameter of the Moon or distance to the Moon using a 2p coin

Does that work because a 2p coin covers the moon almost exactly if held up? (I've never tried it).  I must admit I thought the solution would be to do with triangles.

Sundial's, def. 24 hr creations.  I recall my kids doing sundials at primary school.  They had a day when the sun was out when they took a pole on a stand into the playground and at various times drew a chalk line on the ground - this seemed a useful lesson and would have demonstrated that the clock should show 24 hours. 

However, what I don't think was introduced was the variation over the dates in the year.  I bought my parents a relatively costly sundial for their ruby anniversary (Pictured).  It came etched with the 'Equation of time' which is a linked series of curves on a graph of varying heights above and below the x axis which show how many seconds to add or subtract from the time shown my the gnomon shadow to get the correct time according to the point in the year the reading is taken.  It always rather fascinated me, that it did make the time correct (I spent a long while getting it positioned when I glued it to the stand on a day of zero correction) whilst never quite having the intuition as to why it worked,  That was until the SGL photo thread about the analemma.  I already knew the earth 'wobbled', but hadn't put two and two together to realise the implication for the position of the sun in the sky.  That information about the Analemma and how it could be shown on a photograph suddenly made sense with the 'equation of time' curve on the sundial, esp. the fact that the Analemma produced two unevenly sized loops, thus matching the unevenly sized curves on sundial equation.   OK, I'm not proud that it took me that long to understand these things, but we didn't cover space at my school at all and in the finish I did make the link myself 🙂

NB.  A chemist by training and experience myself I raised a daughter with a honours degree in marine biology, and a son currently  at the end of struggling through his 2nd year in an incredibly difficult course in electronic engineering.  There does seem to be a disparity in the 'difficultness' of courses that lead to a degree.  Everyone gets a degree at the end of 3 years study, but the more I hear the more some courses do appear to be significantly harder in subject matter than others.  

Edit, the picture doesn't show the graph very well so I've found a pic online

 

This graph shows how many minutes the clock is ahead (+) or behind (−) the apparent sun.   So at some times of the year a sundial can be out of step with your watch approaching 15 minutes each way.

and of course your sundial also needs to be made so that it matches  the latitude of where you live - which ours was!   

What I didn't know until just reading online is that I should have been careful about the height it was mounted.  I've read: "To be accurate, such a sundial must have been designed for the local geographical latitude and its style must be parallel to the Earth's rotational axis; the style must be aligned with true north and its height (its angle with the horizontal) must equal the local latitude". 

I wonder what units that height would be measured in?  There's far more to this sundial lark than I imagined when I set it up years ago.  Ah, should have read further:  "To adjust the style height, the sundial can often be tilted slightly "up" or "down" while maintaining the style's north-south alignment.  It did say originally, but I read over it.  So it should inclined to match the latitude.  I reckon it means the gnomon angle IIRC. that played a part when I purchased it.  so in that case it isn't the height it sits above ground, it's the angle of the gnomon which I believe is correct on ours

Edited July 10 by JOC

[Carbon Brush]

The (very good) post by @JOC has brought a long ago memory to the front.
I was in a group attending a wedding at an old church that had a sundial, rather than clockwork timepiece.
We were waiting outside before the ceremony, taking in the sunshine. I glanced up at the sundial and then my watch.
I said... Just look - still keeping good time after all these hundreds of years.
There nods of approval from all, heading towards amazement from some in the group.
I think that sums up the perception of time in the non astro world.

[saac]

26 minutes ago, JOC said:

Does that work because a 2p coin covers the moon almost exactly if held up? (I've never tried it).  I must admit I thought the solution would be to do with triangles.

Sundial's, def. 24 hr creations.  I recall my kids doing sundials at primary school.  They had a day when the sun was out when they took a pole on a stand into the playground and at various times drew a chalk line on the ground - this seemed a useful lesson and would have demonstrated that the clock should show 24 hours. 

However, what I don't think was introduced was the variation over the dates in the year.  I bought my parents a relatively costly sundial for their ruby anniversary (Pictured).  It came etched with the 'Equation of time' which is a linked series of curves on a graph of varying heights above and below the x axis which show how many seconds to add or subtract from the time shown my the gnomon shadow to get the correct time according to the point in the year the reading is taken.  It always rather fascinated me, that it did make the time correct (I spent a long while getting it positioned when I glued it to the stand on a day of zero correction) whilst never quite having the intuition as to why it worked,  That was until the SGL photo thread about the analemma.  I already knew the earth 'wobbled', but hadn't put two and two together to realise the implication for the position of the sun in the sky.  That information about the Analemma and how it could be shown on a photograph suddenly made sense with the 'equation of time' curve on the sundial, esp. the fact that the Analemma produced two unevenly sized loops, thus matching the unevenly sized curves on sundial equation.   OK, I'm not proud that it took me that long to understand these things, but we didn't cover space at my school at all and in the finish I did make the link myself 🙂

NB.  A chemist by training and experience myself I raised a daughter with a honours degree in marine biology, and a son currently  at the end of struggling through his 2nd year in an incredibly difficult course in electronic engineering.  There does seem to be a disparity in the 'difficultness' of courses that lead to a degree.  Everyone gets a degree at the end of 3 years study, but the more I hear the more some courses do appear to be significantly harder in subject matter than others.  

 

It works due to simple proportion,  the relationship between the lengths and diameters is linear.  There is nothing special about the 2p coin, it can be done with other sized coins, discs or thumbs. The smaller the coin the closer to eye it will need to be held, the larger the further away.

Re difficulties of courses. I'm always cautious about suggesting a particular course (subject) is more difficult than another. It's a very subjective view; what one person finds difficult another may find easy given their interests and ability. 

Jim

[saac]

2 hours ago, ollypenrice said:

History? Tell 'em there's no future in it.

lly

They tell me there is always new history being made  

Jim 

[JOC]

25 minutes ago, saac said:

It works due to simple proportion,  the relationship between the lengths and diameters is linear.

Thank you - that makes more sense with the explanation.  As you can probably tell I wasn't the worlds best at maths!

Edited July 10 by JOC

[PeterStudz]

26 minutes ago, saac said:

 

Re difficulties of courses. I'm always cautious about suggesting a particular course (subject) is more difficult than another. It's a very subjective view; what one person finds difficult another may find easy given their interests and ability. 

 

The idea that some university courses are easier than others was certainly around when I did my degree in the early 1980’s. And I suspect it’s been around much longer than that. But does it matter? I just selected a degree in a subject that I enjoyed and had a passion for - Geology. I looked no further than that. I did not care if it was easy/hard or would get me a job.

It reminds me of something Howard Thurman once said. It’s basically what I’ve followed throughout life:

“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

Alice was recently asked by one of her school friends “what’s the point of astronomy?”, which she could not answer. For me the answer is within the quote above. 

This recent suggestion filled me with horror…

https://news.sky.com/story/government-to-crack-down-on-rip-off-university-courses-which-ones-could-be-at-risk-12922087
 

I can understand “drop out rates”, but “proportion of graduates getting a professional job” - it’s not ALL about getting a “professional job”, whatever that is.

Edited July 10 by PeterStudz

[saac]

Just now, JOC said:

As you can probably tell I wasn't the worlds best at maths!

In truth JOC I think I could have made it clearer in the instruction that the position of the coin had to be adjusted and not just held at arms length. 

Talking about arms and distance, here is an interesting conversation piece to have with kids. If you measure the distance from one shoulder (say left hand side) across to the fingertips of the outstretched arm on the other side (right hand side), we find the distance is generally close to 1 m.  This works for the majority of people and is a nice intro to the world of ergonomics, but it can also be used in the classroom to introduce pupils to the art of estimating.

Jim 

[JOC]

2 minutes ago, PeterStudz said:

 

https://news.sky.com/story/government-to-crack-down-on-rip-off-university-courses-which-ones-could-be-at-risk-12922087

Mind you we've had a change in Government since then.

I've seen two kids at Uni. now (and neither have changed my mind that I didn't want to go to Uni.), but what is noticeable is how little time either spent in lessons/studying.  Were University course taught more intensely and for longer terms each year, each course would easily fit into two years, if not one!  This would bring with it commensurate savings for students in residential fees, even if they charged more for the more intense education it would still mean less in student loans for each student and they would be out in the big world earning and contributing that much quicker.

[JOC]

2 minutes ago, saac said:

This works for the majority of people

I am guessing adults!  I've just tried it and am about 10cm longer than a metre and knew without measuring it that it would be.

3 minutes ago, saac said:

introduce pupils to the art of estimating.

Estimating is a handy skill to have.  Unless you have a kid like my son who actually found the exact answers easier to work with than estimates and wasn't happy producing what they considered the more inaccurate answers.  Mind you I still like accuracy myself (I think it's why chemistry gelled and biology didn't).  I must admit I have a fair estimating eye and excellent spatial awareness.  I find I have a good visual grasp of will A fit into B, how long is X, if I roll that 3D shape around it my mind it will become that shape (I love those puzzles), can I fit that overhanging barrow full through that gate gap, will that bit of rolled up wire block that hole in a fence.