Winter Nature Study: Astronomy: Orion

"For many reasons aside from the mere knowledge acquired, children should be taught to know something of the stars. It is an investment for future years; the stars are a constant reminder to us of the thousands of worlds outside our own, and looking at them intelligently lifts us out of ourselves in wonder and admiration for the infinity of the universe and serves to make our own cares and trials seem trivial...Perhaps nothing (can be such a) constant source of satisfaction and pleasure as this ability to call a few stars by the names they have borne since the men of ancient times first mapped the heavens.

-Anna Comstock, Handbook of Nature Study, page 815

"The way to begin star study is to learn to know the Big Dipper and through its pointers to distinguish the Polestar; for whenever we try to find any star we first so as to have some fixed point to start from." -Anna Comstock, Handbook of Nature Study, page 818

The centerpiece of the winter sky is the constellation Orion, which makes star gazing easy in these months because it is so easily recognized and because it is viable throughout the world as it is located on the celestial equator. We read about Orion and how Artemis hung Orion in the sky to keep his memory. The Egyptians, however, identified the constellation with Osiris, the god of rebirth and the afterlife. 

Betelgeuse and Rigel are Orion's brightest stars (1st magnitude), but the stars you notice first usually are the three that make up Orion's belt.
"Draw upon the blackboard... the Big Dipper and the Polestar with a line extending through the pointers. Say to the pupils that this Big Dipper is above or below or at one side of the Polestar, and that you wish them to observe for themselves...." -Anna Comstock, Handbook of Nature Study, page 820

If you look to the next group of stars that Orion appears to be shooting is called Taurus, the bull.

If you look below ant to the right of Orion, you can see a river of stars snaking through the sky. This constellation is called Eridanus, which is named after the ancient Greek name for the Po River (northern Italy). 

Below Orion is another group of stars called Lepus, the hare.

Finally, below Orion and to the left and then directly left are Orion's hunting dogs, Canis Major and Canis Minor.

Just left of the left-most star that forms Orion's belt is something called the Orion Molecular Cloud Complex, which is a group of nebulae, which include the Horsehead Nebula and Flame Nebula. Near the bottom star that forms Orion's sword (that hangs down) is the Orion Nebula  and a cluster of stars known as the Trapezium.

Super Blood Moon Eclipse Art

To continue with Alex's postcard art projects, we decided to celebrate the Super Blood Moon Eclipse that occurred on September 27. I got the idea from the Full Moon Trees art project from Art Projects for Kids, but we executed it a bit differently.

We started off with a postcard sized piece of cardstock. This size lends itself to well, sending as postcards, but also to fitting inside a schoolwork portfolio. I usually have Alex also write a paragraph about the subject in the piece and that makes a very fine portfolio of learning by the end of the year. I also find that small pieces are easier for my special needs student to accomplish without frustration or fatigue. All-in-all it works out well for us.

Anyway, back to the project at hand... first I traced a spice lid to use as our moon. If you think your student can do this himself, then by all means, have him do it, but I knew that Alex would struggle with this part, so I did it for him.  

Next, I had him use dark blue and purple chalk pastels to cover all of the card except the moon. I had him use his fingers to blend these colors a bit (a technique I learned from the Pastels Tutorials at Hodgepodge).

We then went on to add the black trees limbs using black tempera paint. He did most of the limbs, but since he had trouble add a fine touch with his brush, he let me add a few thin branches on the ends of his limbs. It really helped to make them look real. My goal is for Alex to have fun, learn a bit and accomplish his project, so if he needs help here and there, I have no problem with it. If you feel you want your child to do all of his own work and he is unable to do the fine work, then by all means, leave the finer limbs off. 

It was here that we remembered that we wanted to do a little orange-ish blood moon effect, so rather than leaving it out entirely, he went back and added some orange and red in the moon using chalk pastels. Because we had already painted the trees, it has a little bit of gaps where the tree limbs cross, but I actually in the end liked the effect a lot. If you would like it more even, then your student might want to add the orange in when he is working with the chalk pastels for the background. 

This is the second one of the same project. I have him complete two of them so I can send one as a postcard to his aunt, and save the second one for his portfolio.

Super Moon and Perseids Meteror Shower

Full moon Image (c) Shutterstock

The second and largest of three super moons rises today, Sunday August 10, and it also happens to be the beginning of the Perseids Meteor Shower. A super moon is when a full moon is at the closest point it will be to the earth appearing extra large and the Perseid Meteor Shower come around every year at about this time. Typically 60-100 meteors per hour can be seen but this year, because of the super moon, you will more likely see 15-20 meteors per hour, but still worth the effort!

The meteor shower peaks August 12-13. The best time to see the meteor shower is between 11PM and before dawn. View from a place with as little light pollution as possible.

For more ideas for studying Astronomy, Adventures in Mommydom has a post with a myriad of ideas.

Discover and Explore: The Summer Nighttime Sky

First you might want to print out and put together this star chart. It is interesting to see how the stars change as the months go by. 

The Summer Triangle

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This is the perfect time to learn some summer constellations. The first thing to look for is the "summer triangle" which is a triangle formed by three constellations; Cygnus, Aquila and Lyra. 

Go out after dark and if you have a smart phone, use an app such as Stargazer to locate them in the night sky, so you will know where to look. When we first looked, it was too cloudy for us to actually see anything but one bright star, which we think was Vega, in the constellation Lyra. 

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Keep looking each evening until you can locate them. You have all summer to work on it!

The Summer Constellations: Lyra

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This week we focused on the constellation Lyra from the Summer Triangle we found last week. To find Lyra, look for Vega, the brightest star in the constellation. Lyra looks like a small, lopsided square, with Vega just beside one of the corners of the square.

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The legend of Lyra tells the story of Orpheus, who was given a harp by the god Apollo. Orpheus married the lovely maiden Eurydice, but after their wedding, she was bitten by a snake and died. Orpheus was so stricken with grief that he journeyed to the underworld to win her return. His music not only gained him entry to Hades, it caused Pluto, the god of the underworld, to soften his heart and grant Orpheus' wish, but there was one condition -Eurydice had follow Orpheus, who could not look back until both had gained the upper world. Before Eurydice could take the final steps into the light, Orpheus turned to gaze upon her and she vanished. Once Orpheus died, the Muses buried him, and Apollo placed his magical harp in the sky -- as Lyra.

Aquila

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After finding Lyra, Aquila was next on our list. If you can find the summer triangle (see above) you can see that Lyra is on one of the points of the triangle, and Aquila is on another of the points. Aquila means "eagle" in Latin, and looks like an bird with its wings spread in flight, with its beak (a rather large one, too) made with the brightest star, Altair (which comes from the Arabic phrase "al-nasr al-tair", meaning "the flying eagle".) Aquila represents the eagle who carried out many tasks for Jupiter (and Zeus in the Greek mythology) including carrying his thunderbolts. This constellation was also known to the Romans as "Flying Vulture" (vultur volans).

Cygnus

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The last constellation in the summer triangle is Cygnus, which isn't too difficult to find since we have been practicing finding the Summer Triangle and this constellation forms the left hand corner of the triangle. We learned that Cygnus is a Greek word that has been Latinized and means "swan". There are several swans in Greek mythology, but the one we chose to read about was Orpheus, who was transformed into a swan after his murder, and was said to have been placed in the sky next to his lyre. A prominent feature of this constellation is the asterism known as the Northern Cross, formed by the five brightest stars in the constellation. An asterism is a pattern of stars that is not a constellation.The brightest star is Deneb, which is at the top of the constellation. Cygnus is bordered by Cepheus to the north and east, Draco to the north and west, Lyra to the west, Vulpecula to the south, Pegasus to the southeast and Lacerta to the east.

Hercules

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The next, and last, stop on our summer constellation study is the constellation Hercules. The mythical stories associated with this constellation are obvious and many. We read about him in D'Aularies Book of Greek Myths, where he was called Heracles. Hercules has no first or second magnitude stars, so it might be a little harder to spot.

The Summer Triangle, and the globular cluster M13 in Hercules, as seen at 10 p.m. on July 20.source

However, if you have been following us in finding the summer triangle, it should not be too hard to find. Locate the summer triangle and then Lyra and you will find Hercules just to the right of Lyra. Look for the faint smudge of the Great Globular Cluster M13 in the constellation Hercules. If you look the constellation up in books, you will see it positioned to show the figure of Hercules upright, but in the summer sky, he is upside-down. An asterism that forms the lower part of Hercules body is known as the Keystone. You could also find the constellation Hercules by finding this Keystone, which is to the right of the bright star in Vega in Lyra. If you begin at the bright star, Deneb in Cygnus, you can follow that edge of the Summer Triangle, go through Vega in Lyra and continue going straight and you will find the Keystone asterism in Hercules.

Perseus and the Super Moon

Oh, and the 2014 Perseid meteor shower will peak between August 10 and August 13. It is so named because the direction the shower seems to come from lies in the same direction as the constellation Perseus, named after the Greek hero of that name. The constellation lies in the north-eastern part of the sky.

Full moon Image (c) Shutterstock

The second and largest of three super moons rises on Sunday August 10, and it also happens to be the beginning of the Perseids Meteor Shower. A super moon is when a full moon is at the closest point it will be to the earth appearing extra large and the Perseid Meteor Shower come around every year at about this time. Typically 60-100 meteors per hour can be seen but this year, because of the super moon, you will more likely see 15-20 meteors per hour, but still worth the effort!

The meteor shower peaks August 12-13. The best time to see the meteor shower is between 11PM and before dawn. View from a place with as little light pollution as possible.

Happy Vernal Equinox!

Using a lamp or flashlight and a aluminum foil ball, we explored the relationships between the earth and the sun to explain the Vernal Equinox. (Sorry none of these pictures shows the lamp we used, but all the photos with the lamp light in the picture did not turn out and so I have posted only the ones without them. Imagine the lamp or flashlight as you look at the pictures.)

Tilt your ball a little bit so that the southern hemisphere is getting more light from the lamp or flashlight than the northern hemisphere. The vernal equinox is the time when the world has tilted such that the sun passes out of the southern hemisphere…

Slowly tilt the ball so that the equator is centered again and the light becomes dominant again in the northern hemisphere. We in North American are in the northern hemisphere. After the vernal equinox, the sun will shine most brightly in our northern hemisphere. The northern hemisphere will be closest to the sun during the summer months of June, July, and August. 

Now slowly tilt the ball more so that the northern hemisphere is getting more light from the flashlight than the southern hemisphere. The tilting of the earth accounts for why we have warm seasons and cold seasons.

All photos were taken November 2011.

In the fall, the sun will cross back, and our world will go through winter darkness again. Wiggle the ball back and forth so the hemispheres are each getting light, first one then the other.

Astronauts and Space: Activity 3: Liquids in Space

Chris Hadfield demonstrates the effect of weightlessness on liquids.
(Via @Cmdr_Hadfield/Twitter) Read more at: http://www.heavy.com/tech/2013/02/canadian-astronaut-chris-hadfield-best-tweets-from-space/

 Surface tension forms a like of skin in space that holds liquids together in spheres. Earth's gravity is strong enough to squash these spheres into ovals. This demonstration will show how liquids look in free fall and how gravity flattens them and breaks surface tension.

You will need a tall clear glass jar with a lid. 

Fill this with oil.

Put a drop of food coloring in a teaspoon and fill the spoon with water.

Pour this colored water into the oil and watch it form spheres as it falls through the oil.

Put a lid on the jar, flip it and watch the effect again.

Shake the jar and see the larger drops turn into tiny ones.

 Let the jar sit awhile and see what happens to the spheres.

Turn the jar over once and they go back to spheres.

source:

• Space Station Science, Marianne Dyson

related posts:

• Density in Nature
• Archimedes Fun
• Layering Liquids
• Rainbow Density
• Density, Buoyancy and Fish
• Erupting Lava Bottle

Astronauts and Space: Activity 2: The Impact of Meteors

"On the seventh space shuttle flight, astronaut Robert Crippen noticed a pit in the windshield. After landing, the windshield had to be replaced. Using x-rays, scientists figured out that the window was the victim of a paint fleck no bigger than a pencil point." 

-Marianne Dyson, Space Station Science

To demonstrate the difference speed can make in terms of impact craters, you can use a penny, a few eggs, a bowl and a ruler (yardstick would be even better, but we don't have one.)

Put the egg in the bowl and place it on a table or on the floor. Hold a penny 4 inches above the egg and drop it. Double the impact by doubling the height, from which you drop the penny (8 inches.)

Keep adding 4 additional inches each time until the penny penetrates the shell. 

It is hard to see in this photo, but the egg began to get dimples and cracks in it when the penny was 16-24 inches away.

You can continue to experiment. Are the dents or cracks larger as you hold the penny further away from the egg before dropping it?

Now crack another egg and place part of it's shell over another egg. Drop the penny on this combination as you did before. Did this help protect the egg underneath?

The astronaut and physicist Fred Whipple used this concept when he invented the "Whipple Bumper" to protect space stations. It consists of an outer aluminum wall, a layer of material between the walls and then the wall to the space station. The outer wall will take the damage without it affecting the actual wall of the space station.

source:

• Space Station Science, Marianne Dyson

Astronauts and Space: Activity 1: Training for Rendezvous and Docking

Once a spacecraft is in orbit, often it needs to rendezvous and dock with another space craft, just like in the video above. To give your students a little idea of what this would be like, you can give them a training session.

 Take two paper plates and cut the rims off, so that you have two flat circles. You could also make them out of cardstock or the like.

 Punch 4-6 holes around the edge with a hole punch.

 Make sure that the two circles and their holes are exactly alike.

 Cut slits in the ends of as many straws as you have holes. 

 Put the straws through the holes, slit ends last. Spread the cut ends and tape them to the circle.

  Can you line up the paper with the straws attached so that all the straws go into the holes in the other paper at the same time?

 You are allowed to bend the circle to help you align the straws, but you are not allowed to touch the straws.

Docking completed. Can you improve you time with practice?

sources and inspiration:

• Space Station Science, Marianne Dyson

Oceans of Oobleck

Lab Investigation

A space probe has just returned from a planet in another star system. The planet is covered with large oceans and a sample of the ocean material was collected by the space probe. 

You are one of a group of space scientists gathered to investigate the properties of the ocean sample.

I acted as a scribe for them as they experimented with the Oobleck, since it would have been difficult for them to write with Oobleck on their hands.

Scientific Convention

Professional scientists come from all over the world to attend meetings called scientific conventions. During a convention, scientists listen to each other's experimental results and critically discuss them. The goal of the convention is not to prove each other right or wrong, but to find the truth and state it as clearly and completely as possible.

We took the list that we had complied and I had the boys write their own reports on their observations of the Oobleck. They then presented their reports to the family, who could then ask clarifying questions.

Spacecraft Designs 

The next assignment was to design a spacecraft that is able to land on an ocean of Ooblek, explore the whole planet, and take off again with all passengers aboard. Aside from the oceans of Oobleck, the planet has conditions very much like those on Earth.

Quentin's Design, with notes I wrote down from his oral narrations

Flora and Fauna

Quentin's (age 9) plant designs

The last assignment was to sketch some ideas for what flora and fauna that might live in this environment. What adaptations would they need to survive in this habitat?

Quentin's (age 9) designs for an animal that could live in Oobleck.

source:

• Oobleck: What Do Scientists Do?, Lawrence Hall of Science