AWHC & ACC

Yesterday I met with Chris Schultz out at the American West Heritage Center in preparation for the Giant Star Party on 12 August 2011. I will once again be giving Stellarium Presentations about the Perseid meteor shower in the Livery Stable at 7:30, 8:30, 9:30, & 10:30 pm. The event goes from 7 pm to 11 pm, and there will be pony rides, wagon rides, storytellers, Dr Quakenbush (sorry Dr Q if I spelled that wrong), a glow-in-the-dark carnival, and a gunfight! Anyone who brings a telescope gets in free, otherwise it's $6.

Meanwhile, on the Artemisian Costumers Challenge I haven't made much progress. Moving will do that to you. Oh, btw, my hubby & I bought a house! I did, however, find some linen curtains at a yard sale for 50¢.

LtUE 29

This weekend I was at Life, the Universe, and Everything XXIX, The Marion K. “Doc” Smith Symposium on Science Fiction & Fantasy. On Thursday morning, I was on a panel on Using the Scriptures for Story Ideas. Oh yeah, this symposium happens at Brigham Young University. Later, I was on a panel about Time Travel, Quantum Physics, and Parallel Universes. That one was a lot of fun. On Friday, my husband gave a presentation on When Plants go Bad. My final presentation was Using Stellarium in the Classroom. It was part of the Educators' Conference on Saturday, and not many people came. I think LtUE needs to improve advertising to teachers, 'cause even those who came to my presentation weren't school teachers but parents.

We had a lot of fun hanging out with all our ConFriends, and met several cool new people. Actually, we made it a point to meet new people, such as sitting next to unfamiliar faces during panels and at the banquet. We also bought XDM, & my husband is planning to run some games using it. I'm looking forward to that.

Presenting, again & at last

The Thursday before Thanksgiving was the first school presentations in over a year. We have a new format now, since the Jr Engineering equipment all got sold to a school in Idaho. Now I am taking only a laptop to the schools. This laptop has on it an open-source program called Stellarium. "Stellarium is planetarium software that shows exactly what you see when you look up at the stars. It's easy to use, and free."1. I can control time, show artwork for multiple cultures star lore, and even travel to Mars in my presentations with Stellarium.

On the 18th of December, I gave presentations at Sunrise Elementary School in Smithfield, UT for grades K-5. They went very well. For Kindergarten, 1st, & 2nd grade, I tell the Greek & Iraquois stories of the Big Bear, and the story of Andromeda & the Sea Monster for late fall/early winter. For 3rd grade, I do a presentation on the planets, which includes zooming in on Jupiter & the Galilean Moons, Saturn, and Mars, then changing our location to the Spirit landing site and looking back at Earth. For 4th grade, I do a presentation on the Navajo Skies, matching their social studies curriculum rather than the science curriculum. For 5th grade, I give a general planetarium, introduction to the night sky presentation, what stars/constellations/planets are currently visible in the evening, how to find them, and a little bit of information about them.

Today, I gave a presentation at Wilson Elementary in Logan, UT. Wilson does things a little bit different than most other schools. During the last 30 minutes of the school day, a different grade has time for special presentations each day. The teachers get collaboration time, and the students meet with the Library, Music, PE, & Computer specialists, and often they will bring in people to do special presentations or do art projects. This week, I am doing the presentations, and today was 5th grade. It didn't go so well, though. We couldn't get the computer to talk to the projector. So I had to wing it. I talked to the students a bit about light pollution, and then drew the Dippers on the board, showing them how to find Polaris, and then connecting the dots for Ursa Major, and I even tried to draw Ursa Minor. The kids kept talking to their neighbors, or if I asked them to raise their hands to answer a question, a bunch of them just shouted it out. It was rather annoying, but I can't really blame them because the equipment was not working. After school, the Music specialist & I did manage to get the computer to talk to her classroom projector (which is portable), so when I get there tomorrow and the rest of the week, I will just go into her room & get her projector, and hopefully, it will be working for the rest of the presentations. But just in case, I'm going to look for all the various NASA pictures I have collected over the years and take those with me as a backup.

1. quote from the Stellarium.org website.

Lazy & Links

So I said I was going to write more. Yesterday, I worked on the StarHouse Discovery Center and Cote du Ciel websites, & got started writing grants. I should probably spend more time today writing grants, but I don't want to. Part of that is that Walmart requires a non-profit organization to already be on the IRS's published list of 501(c)3 organizations. We're not, yet, but our paperwork is in, & we've heard back from the IRS. Apparently, our application is in review, but one of three things will happen to it: 1] it will be approved, 2] it will be approved with changes, or 3] they will assign someone to work with us to get it to the point that it can be approved. This sounds to me like the IRS wants to approve 501(c)3 applications on a general principal, and understands that most people don't understand the tax code at all. If either of those were not true, then there would be no reason for them to work with us to get our application to the point that it can be approved.

Meanwhile, some cool links:

Women in Wetlands a few months ago posted a book review, about a young woman who loves chemistry, & uses it to solve a mystery.

a friend from the SCA, Ray Zentz got a job offer he couldn't refuse, but too far to commute every day. They didn't have time to find a new home, so they're camping in a yurt in another friend's backyard for the winter! In northern Utah!

another SCA friend is teaching astronomy in high school, but her degree is in biology & chemistry. I sent her to the Open High School Earth Systems course for a text book, and Stellarium, 'cause it's fun & free.

Giant Star Party Morning After

Last night was the Giant Star Party at the American West Heritage Center. From what I could see, it was a big success. There were wagon rides, story telling, about half a dozen telescopes, a glow-in-the-dark tea party, space-related crafts, & a gunfight! I gave star show presentations using a freeware planetarium simulation software, Stellarium. I gave four presentations, & had between 15-20 people at each one. I'm not sure how many people total came to the star party, I'm going to have to get a hold of David & Chris at the AWHC to find out exactly how many people came. It looked like there was well over a hundred people watching the gunfight at 10 pm, though. The event wasn't officially over until midnight, but most of the activities ended at 11 pm, & most people started leaving then, so that's when we started cleaning up. I had everything (papers scattered across 4 tables, money from donations, lightning ball, hydraulic robot, Galileoscope, Leonardo bridge, pens, jars, basket, Arno's laptop, my own 8" Dobsonian telescope, dinner, extra clothes to deal with the change in temperature, and multiple boxes & bags for everything to pack into) back into my Bug by 12:30 am (Saturday). I've said it before, & I'll say it again, Bugs are awesome. When I unpacked it before the party started, the people who saw everything come out were amazed. I love my Bug.

Once I've had a chance to process everything, I'll post a report on the success of the Giant Star Party. Hope to see you there next year.

Around the World in 50 Minutes

Today in Astronomy Camp, I put a list of a bunch of topics in astronomy history up for the kids to see, & had them pick one. I also let only one kid have any given topic. There were 23 things on the list, & only 10 kids in the class, so there was plenty to choose from. Six kids wanted Ancient Greek Astronomy! So I had all six choose a second topic, & said that possibly one of them could do Ancient Greek Astronomy, depending on what else got picked. The very next topic, two of those kids wanted, so I let them decide between themselves who was going to do which. Another kid, though, all he wanted to do was Greek Astronomy, & nothing else. Since he wouldn't pick something else, I used the rand() function in a spreadsheet program to pick one for him. I think that kid was one who, during introductions yesterday, had said his parents' were making him come to Astronomy Camp. The entire time he was resistant to doing anything.

Once all the kids had picked a topic, we went down to the computer lab. Starting with Astronomy for Kids, they each read about the topic they had chosen, then used Google searches to find pictures, and sometimes more information, about their topic. I gave them an hour and a half to work on that, & those who finished sooner were given the choice of doing a second topic, or playing on Flash Planetarium, which I had used yesterday to help them learn to use their planispheres. They used a word processing program to make some notes & save their pictures, which I then saved to my jump drive. The last hour of Camp today, we went back to the classroom, I plugged my jump drive into the computer there that was connected to the projector, & they each gave a little 5 minute presentation on their topic.

I also did some preparation for the next couple of days. Tomorrow, Michelle Larson from the USU Physics Department, is coming to talk to the kids for about half an hour, so I talked to her about that, & also gave her directions to the room. I also talked to the Logan District Computer Specialists & arranged to get Stellarium on some computers for Thursday.

I think things are going really well.

ps. There is also a Harry Potter Camp going on at the same time, except it is 5 weeks long. They are mostly doing science activities. I talked to the guy in charge, & they are spending a week on astronomy. I got his e-mail address, so I'm going to try to keep in touch with him over the next year, & maybe get to be part of that next year.

Down Under

So my parents are in New Zealand, & my Dad has a blog: The Trigator, but when I tried to make a comment on it, the link for comments wasn't available. 8-( In an e-mail from my Mom the other day, she mentioned that they might visit a planetarium down there. I want to know if they've managed to spot the Southern Cross. It's not as easy to find as the Big Dipper we have here in the Northern Hemisphere. I've had some opportunities to practice in the Clark Planetarium Dome, & with Stellarium. If I remember right, it's in the Milky Way, across from the Magellanic Clouds. Which is probably not a really useful description, but I'm having stupid computer problems, & Stellarium won't open, so that's completely from memory. I hope to one day visit the Southern Hemisphere so I can see it for myself.