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Dear all,
I am pleased to report that the school talk went off brilliantly today at Point Clare Public School.
Thanks to HOughy lending the Solar scope, I organised a talk around the Sun.
We started with a few "Pop Quiz" questions (such as, "Where do the stars go during the day?"), and then I went through some facts and figures, with the kids writing down words in the blanks in a body of text. We covered the sun's size, temperature, features, distance from earth, and age. I then talked a bit about the sun's future, and I showed some lovey pictures of planetary nebulae to make the point.
Next area we covered was the dangers of space, and I picked up on an article in the current edition of Astronomy Magazine about an unmanned mission to survey the sun, scheduled in or about 2014. I had some pictures, and the kids were enthralled.
Last up, we talked about the PST Coronado, what to look out for (sunspots, solar flares and prominences etc), and then I took the kids out in groups of three or four at a time (with the teacher supervising the rest) to show them the sun. Most of the kids had a "Wow" moment when they finally worked out how to look into the eyepiece. Even the teacher was astonished when she got to have a look. There was an obvious sunspot which almost everyone saw, and some large solar flares at 2 o'clock and 9 o'clock which many saw very clearly.
All in all, very worthwhile. Thanks again to HOughy for his generosity in lending the scope.
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