The Sydney suburban public high school where astronomy is an elective

[gary]

A story in today's Sydney Morning Herald by Pallavi Singhal reports on
students at Prairiewood High School, a public high school in Sydney's
western suburbs at Wetherill Park, who have just completed their
NSW High School Certificate physics exam.

Pallavi reports that the school has its own observatory and a couple of
pictures show students inside the dome equipped with a Meade SCT
on a German equatorial mount.

Originally Posted by Pallavi Singhal, Sydney Morning Herald

Prairiewood High is one of the few schools in the state with its own observatory and offers astronomy as an elective in years 9 and 10.

Mr Di Scala said the computerised telescope and the school's regular star nights were "a drawcard" for students considering studying science.

"We have star nights just to excite kids about science," he said.

"In 2012 when the transit of Venus happened, primary school kids, parents and members of the community came in; there were hundreds of people.

"Everyone got a chance to see it and that's something that won't happen for another 100 years."

Originally Posted by Pallavi Singhal, Sydney Morning Herald

Steven, who is studying both physics and chemistry at Prairiewood High, said his passion for science grew after he chose astronomy as an elective in years 9 and 10.

"I wasn't as good at science in years 7 and 8 but astronomy helped me get better," he said.

"[Astronomy] is very different compared to what we study in normal classes at school, it's an application science; we get to collect a lot of observational data."

Originally Posted by Pallavi Singhal, Sydney Morning Herald

At Prairiewood High, 24 year 12 students are doing physics. About 37 year 11 students are also studying the subject and 45 year 10 students have now chosen to do it for their HSC.

The school's science head teacher, Giorgio Di Scala, said it would need an extra physics class next year and was looking at hiring another teacher to keep up with the growing numbers.

Story here :-
http://www.smh.com.au/national/educa...30-gzb0z3.html

[xelasnave]

Thats OK so long as it does not interfere with their cooking classes.
alex

[Shano592 (Shane)]

Man, I would have loved for my high school to have this option.

Then I wouldn't have done the cooking class! (Just kidding. A class where a teenage boy can eat his mistakes!?)

I would have done the course though. Drop Chemistry, pick up Astronomy to go with Physics. Win.

Alas, the 80's in Perth's eastern suburbs was not the time or place for it.

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Great stuff, thanks for the link Gary, hearing about this sort of thing is heart warming.

Not sure how it compares now... but I was extremely lucky to have been part of the ACT secondary college system, for me that was 84/85. The college based system for yrs 11 & 12 was just fantastic and unique in Australia. As a result there were some awesome courses offered including Oceanography, Geology and Astronomy and these were completely separate subjects to Physics or Chemistry and you could do either 1 year of 2yrs and your assessment went directly to your final TES (Tertiary Entrance Score) just like Physics and Chemistry etc. To go to school for two years and do Astronomy and have it count directly toward my University entrance score was a dream...and I moved all the way form Newcastle to Canberra just to be able to do this . Of course I did the full 2yrs Major course and for the record and needless to say , I finished with a contributing score of 100 toward my final TES .

We had a C8 and 4" Tasco at the college but we also had access to the 9" Oddie telescope at Mt Stromlo each week and we shared this access with other secondary colleges in the ACT.

While I didn't go on to be a professional astronomer, they were a very happy astronomy intensive two years for me and part of what we did even became a story featured in US Sky & Telescope

Mike

[julianh72 (Julian)]

Brisbane Girls Grammar School has just opened their observatory:
https://www.bggs.qld.edu.au/observatory/

Both of my girls went there - but the youngest finished last year, so I have missed out on the opportunity to "help her with her homework"!

[strongmanmike (Michael)]

Originally Posted by julianh72

Brisbane Girls Grammar School has just opened their observatory:
https://www.bggs.qld.edu.au/observatory/

Both of my girls went there - but the youngest finished last year, so I have missed out on the opportunity to "help her with her homework"!

Pretty awesome, I've been following the development of this facility through its designer, must be fabulous for the girls

Mike

[xelasnave]

We would as a nation benefit greatly from astronomy being in schools...all of them...
A flyer to all schools suggesting an astronomy option with the offer to provide help if needed (which hopefully our community could manage if only by advice etc.)
I see annual astro photo competitions between schools, awards for method and recognition actively sort.
alex

[el_draco (Rom)]

Good story. I have been building an observatory for several years now with the aim of doing remote outreach for schools. Almost there!

[Wavytone]

Astronomy fell by the wayside in recent decades.

In the 1960s and 70s every public school taught Harry Messels science program for years 10-12 which did include basic astronomy and optics and were issued a 4” reflector, though sadly very few of the teachers knew how to use it and most say in a cupboard never used.

Some schools taught the “Project physics” course for years 11 and 12, in which the course was 6 sections one of them being a whole term of year 11 was astronomy. The experiments were very similar to those in Jerry Waxman’s “Astronomy Workbook”

The school I went to was lucky enough to have had a 4.5” Cooke refractor since 1936... it was fully functional in a roll off shed and many nice evenings were spent with it.

[theodog (Jeff)]

I believe there is no Astronomy in the New NSW HSC Physics syllabus.

[Wavytone]

Which is a great shame - physics is about the very big, and the very small, quantum mechanics and relativity. Astronomy is where they all arose, and continue to pose challenges.

Little wonder kids don’t see science as having any practical use without the primary examples of where it comes into play.

[Astrophe (John)]

For what it's worth, I remember doing a bit of astronomy at high school in the mid 1960s. It was just basic stuff, like memorising the name of the planets in their order from the Sun (including Pluto in those days) and a bit of stuff about the Universe in general. Some of the interest generated, might have been down to our science teacher, who was a top bloke and a great communicator. Fond memories.

[pfitzgerald (Paul)]

Thank you for sharing this Gary - it's something worth my looking into a bit further.

Paul

[JA]

Our boys were all exposed to Astronomy at school from junior to middle school as part of Science or via school outreach. Later in senior years VCE Physics in Victoria covers some aspects of astronomy and much of the required related understanding.

Best
JA

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

We would as a nation benefit greatly from astronomy being in schools...all of them...
A flyer to all schools suggesting an astronomy option with the offer to provide help if needed (which hopefully our community could manage if only by advice etc.)
I see annual astro photo competitions between schools, awards for method and recognition actively sort.
alex

yeah but most kids couldn't care less...too busy with their iPhone/xbox/ps4/internet/tv...

[dpastern (Dave Pastern)]

well, I did physics in year 11 (85) at my local high school (NSW), and one of the electives was Astronomy. I was the only one in a class of 20 interested. The proposed excursion to Siding springs observatory was cancelled as I was the only one who put a deposit on it. I was deeply disappointed.

I dropped physics in year 12 needless to say.

[arthurnotthekin (Arthur James)]

Hi,

I'm going to finish my postgraduate teaching apprenticeship in 2020 and I will become a curator of the extracurricular course (Taylors High School), so I'll have a choice: Astronomy or Space Robotics. What would you recommend? I mean which one would be a more interesting, informative and helpful course? I need to prepare materials and lesson plans (I've already some Astronomy, Space and Robotics essays and research topics, but these are not enough for a science based course) beforehand, so I'm looking for resources now.

[Wavytone]

Look up Jerry Waxmans “Workbook for Astronomy”. When I did HSC physics there was 1 term of astronomy covering the origins of the calendar, orbital motion from Copernicus to the material in Newton’s Principia, 20th century astronomy.

The experiments were very close to those in waxmans book.

If you don’t have it, get a copy of Principia, much of it is still useful.

For the kids really into maths there are some good books on calculating astronomical phenomena by Duffet-Smith and Jan Meeus; these require no more than trig (lots of it).

If you can show them how to predict something they can confirm with their own eyes at night I suggest that’s about as good as it gets in terms of scientific method. Could he as simple as sunrise/set, moon rise/set, or an alignment of the planets. Showing them these things are real and that maths works is a huge part.

It’s feasible to determine the orbit of mars with the help of a modest digital camera, or the height of Mt Piton, or even measure the speed of light over 6 months by timing jupiters moons.

[Retrograde (Pete)]

Originally Posted by theodog

I believe there is no Astronomy in the New NSW HSC Physics syllabus.

That's not really the case Jeff. I tutor HSC physics at a Sydney high school and in the sample questions for the new NSW HSC Physics syllabus from NESA there are a couple of questions involving the Hertzprung Russell diagram as part of the "From the Universe to the Atom" section of the syllabus. There are also questions involving planetary motion etc.

What has happened is that they've gone from an elective model where students could select from different electives (one of which was Astronomy/Astrophysics) to a straight syllabus where everyone studies the same topics - so the overall amount of astronomy content a student studies now would have decreased compared to a past student who selected astronomy as one of their electives.