More progress. This week was comets for one school, climate change for another and for one more, black holes. All three classes were great and it is fantastic to see Burnley endowed with such talented students. There are definitely good times ahead for these students.
Today I began another series in another series of sessions in a new school. I cycled to this one and disaster struck when my chain snapped. I was so relieved that Laura was able to rescue me. I arrived on time fortunately and all was well. In this session there were almost twenty students plus two parents. I am always very pleased when I see children and parents learning together. That is a rewarding thing for Beauty In The Universe. This was another great school, and I think we will do well for the students there.
Did you know that the recent Earthquake in Chile slowed the Earth's rotation by 0.126 milliseconds?
Dream Theater: Raw Dog
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Showing posts with label Earth. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Earth. Show all posts
Earth Moon
Today was the first day of a new term, six weeks now until Easter, and it was the first session proper delivered to the secondary school in our rotation. The last time I was there was a taster session delivered to a great bunch of kids with a bundle of attitude. I love these kids. Today's session was delivered to their GCSE class with a couple of 'stepper-uppers', i.e. talented students from lower years. The subject was the Earth - Moon system, and I managed to export a great deal of knowledge in 45 minutes. We covered libration:
Libration is a 'wobble' observed in the Moon's orbital motion as it faces Earth. The GIF above demonstrates this by showing the motion greatly accelerated. 50% of the surface of the Moon is visible from Earth at any one time, but thanks to libration it is possible to see 59% of the Moon's surface can be observed.
We also talked about eclipses, total, partial and annular. We covered the landings, including a thorough debunking of the Moon Landing conspiracies, each with accompanying explanations of why they are so preposterous, and this is a very useful tool actually, an easy way to cover a diverse knowledge base very quickly. After that we had a general chat about the Apollo missions, Apollo 13 and various interesting elements of the missions like the Lunar Rover, the geography and topography of the Moon and a little about the formation.
It was a Monday morning lesson, sleeps heads in some ways, but nonetheless a great lesson and the shock and awe in the face of how cool astronomy is was absolutely clear.
Song. Read More!
Libration is a 'wobble' observed in the Moon's orbital motion as it faces Earth. The GIF above demonstrates this by showing the motion greatly accelerated. 50% of the surface of the Moon is visible from Earth at any one time, but thanks to libration it is possible to see 59% of the Moon's surface can be observed.
We also talked about eclipses, total, partial and annular. We covered the landings, including a thorough debunking of the Moon Landing conspiracies, each with accompanying explanations of why they are so preposterous, and this is a very useful tool actually, an easy way to cover a diverse knowledge base very quickly. After that we had a general chat about the Apollo missions, Apollo 13 and various interesting elements of the missions like the Lunar Rover, the geography and topography of the Moon and a little about the formation.
It was a Monday morning lesson, sleeps heads in some ways, but nonetheless a great lesson and the shock and awe in the face of how cool astronomy is was absolutely clear.
Song. Read More!
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