Mar 12 2010
the brightest star in the sky
It’s that time of year when people start wondering what to do with S2. I’ve mentioned this issue here and here in earlier posts. Last year I looked at a space-related CfE outcome with S2. I was going to trial a renewable energy topic with this class until one of them told me last week that there was a brilliant series about the solar system starting on BBC2 that weekend and I should watch it.
He was talking about Professor Brian Cox’s Wonders of the Solar System and I had already set my BT Vision box to record the series. However, the enthusiasm of others in the class to find out more about space, with questions such as “what is the sun?” and “is it true the world will blow up in 2012 and we’re all going to die?” suggested that there was value in trying to follow Prof Cox‘s journey through the solar system.
We’ve got 3 periods a week and some boys have asked if the lesson on Monday could be a repeat of the Sunday evening programme on BBC iPlayer. Here’s the trailer for the series. Perhaps it will explain why the kids are so interested.
It looks exciting, the presenter is young and beard-free – he was even in a band once.
We’ve toured the solar system using Celestia and, this morning, we started to look at the stars. My starter question went something like “What’s the brightest star in the sky?” and they told me it was the sun. Maybe someone tried that trick before, they didn’t say.
The sun apart, we normally consider Sirius to be the brightest star in the night sky. So how do you find Sirius? There is a great free programme called Stellarium that will display the night sky. It turned my smartboard into a planetarium for the duration of the lesson. Most pupils were able to point towards Orion and I showed them how a line towards the ground from Orion’s belt would lead to Sirius. Here’s a screenshot of Stellarium.
The funny thing about stars is that they are back to front. Go into the bathroom and look at your taps. The red one is for hot water and the blue one is for cold. But in astronomy the blue stars burn hotter than red ones. Notice in the screenshot above that the bottom right star, Rigel, is shown in a blueish hue while the top left star, Betelgeuse has a red tinge. Rigel is an incredibly hot and bright star, while Betelgeuse is a lot cooler.
The homework for next week is to go outside and find these three stars in the night sky.
I’m a science teacher as well, and have used Wonders of the Solar system in my lessons this week with Yr 7 – what a brilliant show!
As someone who sadly lost their interest in science through the badly-executed tedium of GCSE lessons (but has since become a fanatical hobbyist in all things science-y), it makes me happy and hopeful to see such a dynamic approach to teaching.
Wonders is a brilliant show, Prof Cox is close to becoming a new Carl Sagan in my eyes!
Thursday 25th March there is a national Glow Meet on the solar system between 2-3pm
See
https://portal.glowscotland.org.uk/establishments/nationalsite/Glowing%20Potential/Lists/Pages/Glowing%20Thursdays.aspx
[...] wrote a post last term about my S2 class asking to base their lessons for the remainder of the year around the [...]
I love to use stellarium as a time machine to go back to when I was in grade 7 and saw a near total eclipse of the sun. Works for lunar eclipses as well. I showed students a lunar eclipse that was due to happen that night!!!
Watch from the earth, then the sun or the moon. WOW!
http://cyberspaced.blogspot.com/2008/08/teachers-learning.html
This shows a solar eclipse (1976, Adelaide) which I shared with a group of teachers a few years ago.