Tells us about your experience with children and astronomy.

[AEAJR]

It occurs to me that I have not seen much in the way of parents asking about scopes for their kids. :question: Or experienced adults sharing this experience with their own children or the neighborhood children.

I did see one discussion about an outreach for the Guiders, a group I had not heard of before, being from the USA. But that has been about it.

Anyone sharing their scope with their children? Grandchildren?

Got any tips or advice on engaging children in astronomy?

Or is the youth of the Southern Hemisphere tied to their XBoxes. :shrug:

[mental4astro]

Hi Ed,

I had a bit of an experience just tonight with kids. I was doing a sketch of the Moon earlier tonight. My son came out to be with dad after a while and asked to see the Moon. I try to always mention some feature or other to them - most boys have a fascination with volcanoes and the Moon has plenty of these. He then pointed out Jupiter and asked to see it. The little bloke, on his first squiz of Jupiter scores the Great Red Spot AND a shadow transit! Took me years for my first score! And next a look at Sirius.

What I'm getting at is he showed some interest in what I was doing, and I made the scope his own. I had the chance to engage with his curiosity, and I dropped what I was doing. Yeah I was in the middle of a sketch, but the chance to engage with him was more important.

When my camera failed with the Girl Guides night, instead of stuffing around with reverting my scope to visual, I saw a chance of engaging with the young folk by talking to them, and answering their questions, on what ever topic that conversation followed and influenced. All I had in my hand was a laser to point out things in the sky that as naked eye objects offered examples or illustration. Yes, I was fortunate that there were 10 other scopes in action, but that was what the opportunity allowed for, :)

On both occasions it was engaging with people at where their immediate curiosity. No agenda other than sharing and learning - by both parties!

Just some insight.

Alex.

[Wavytone]

Ed,

Some us do outreach nights perhaps once a year, usually for a school or college as you might call it in the US, and ideally the students from the science classes as basic astronomy is taught as part of physics by some schools in the last two years.

In the city centre, sydney observatory - its main interest is as a historical building and museum - is open many nights and I think this deals with a lot of the people just curious for a look at the moon or bright planets; its location is as badly light polluted as Manhattan so there's not a lot else to show.

In addition one university in Sydney occasionally hosts a huge public astronomy night, complete with serious lecture and as many scopes as they can muster from the amateur community to deal with a crowd that can run over 1,000.

Part of the problem is our weather in Sydney. It can have wet or dry cycles lasting as long as 7-11 years and right now we're in the midst of a wet cycle for 3-4 years - we have had very very few suitable nights for observing.

Alex was very lucky last week to have what looked like an overcast afternoon clear up well enough after dark.

We occasionally do have parents posting here looking for a scope for a child, though admittedly I can only recall 2-3 over the past few years.

That said, my little boy is only 18 months old and already recognises the moon and some stars ... Regularly points at the moon each evening and tries to say "moon". Safe to say he'll have a scope sooner than most ;)

[janoskiss]

Having hosted many public astro events, I am confidently sexist and say girls are much easier to cater for than boys. The boys are too restless while the girls will stop and look and some will go "wow!! please daddy, can I look again?". The girls are better at listening to instructions about not touching, leaning, pushing & shoving, and also about where and how to look. As a result they get a lot more out of it. I don't have a solution for dealing with boys much under 10. If anyone knows please tell me because I'd like to know. (I don't have kids of my own btw.)

[bugeater]

One of my motivations for getting back into the hobby was so I'd be ready when my now 2 year old son starts showing interest in such things. He already notices the moon by himself and points it out.

[AEAJR]

These are great posts. Thanks and keep 'em coming.

[multiweb]

Love the "wows!..." and "cool!..." when the little ones see saturn or the moon up close for the first time.

[geolindon]

I include a brief report to our local Mackay Qld group on a local school night;

G day all, a very successful school night in Collinsville with about 80-90 adults n children. very relaxed, friendly and welcoming crowd and great views. thanks to the very active school community for inviting us, to Paul for making the trip and the several locals who quickly mastered dob driving. If others enjoyed it as much as I did it was a good night all round.
this from 4 little girls not knee high to a grass hopper " we have a question . . . . what sort of planet would an alien live on?" after a brief description about ice / water / boiled dry, they were pleased as punch with "a planet in the Goldilock's zone . . . not too cold, not too hot . . just right" :-) GOLD!!

I really like Alex's comments too!

Cheers, Lindon

[kittenshark]

Lots of the kids I've met at public outreach programs are pretty bright and ask pretty intelligent questions.:thumbsup:

The adults, on the other hand...:screwy:

[AEAJR]

One thing I have noticed is that the kids love the zoom eyepiece. I have a Celestron 8-24 zoom and this is always a hit.

[MichaelSW]

Ed,

G'day.

Weather permitting, my astronomy group does public outreach twice a month, occasional school nights and community events. We had 10 telescopes at a School Night last Wednesday with students (aged 8) and their parents - 200 over 2 hours.

When you get a combination of well behaved and interested kids, and well behaved and interested adults, it is just a true pleasure to give someone possibly their first look at the night sky through a telescope.

My scope is a collapsable 12" Skywatcher Dob - all manual. Unless you get someone with malicious intent, they are not going to hurt it, so when a group isn't so big and time permits, I like to give kids and adults a go at lining an object up in the finderscope to look at for themselves.

Always a bit of a surprise when something doesn't move the 'right' way. And then they learn to focus for their own eyes.

You know when they have seen. It is great sharing the love.

[Rodstar]

Hi Ed,

My three kids grew up living and breathing astronomy because I took them to every star party I attended, and most observing nights with our local group. They all associate astronomy now with camping with dad - lots of great memories.

I have been involved with numerous outreach events involving kids. They are most excited by objects with immediate visual impact, the moon and Saturn being the consistent favourites. Most smaller children will struggle to enthuse about faint objects until they have sufficient understanding to make any sense of what they are looking at - this means for most kids, it will only be in their high school years that the "lights will switch on".

It helps to give my kids jobs to do. Train them to use the Argo Navis, and how to read a star map - with mastery of one thing comes an enthusiasm to learn the next, and they will derive a thrill from sharing what they know with other children (and adults).

For me, observing is often a very social thing, meeting with other amateurs and sharing our interest under the night sky together. Most children will enjoy being present for the banter and participating in a night under the skies, so long as they are welcomed and can participate. Provisions of chocolate and cookies make things fun too.

One of my boys often says that he hopes i will bequeath him my telescope in my will. Not only does he see the value in my telescope (!!), but he also feels a connection with me through the experiences we have shared under the night sky.

[AEAJR]

Michael and Rod,

Thanks for relating your experiences. Makes me wish I had returned to astronomy when my girls were little. Missed opportunity but we did so much together it would have been hard to fit it in.

Now I enjoy sharing with other people's children.