Spring Break

This week is Spring Break for both Utah school districts here in Cache Valley. I don't know about Idaho, but I haven't had any response from the Idaho schools at all this year. So no substitute teaching and no presentations.

The last two weeks, however, have been pretty busy. I've been to River Heights and Wellsville Elementary Schools for a whole days worth of presentations each, and North Park Elementary had their science fair. I did a very informal tour of the solar system for the science fair presentation, as people were coming in and out at different times. And then the biggie: My first middle school presentations using Stellarium was last Tuesday at Spring Creek Middle School in Providence. I spent the entire day giving 6th grade presentations. A student teacher at Spring Creek was actually the one who contacted me, so the presentations were all on constellations for her classes and her cooperating teacher's. Her advisor from Utah State University showed up, so I had a chance to talk to him.

The 6th grade constellation presentation is specifically designed to answer some questions for the kids that appear on the state exam. One of the questions shows a diagram of the Sun at noon, with the line art of a constellation behind it, another constellation at the eastern horizion, and a third on the western horizon. The kids are asked to identify which of the three constellations the Sun will be in when it sets. The correct answer is the same one as it is in at noon, but from working at the Clark Planetarium, I learned that this is not an easy question for 12-year-olds to understand. The other questions I try to answer have to do with the coordinate systems used in astronomy, and the relationship between star brightness and star distances. If anyone has a 6th grader, or knows a 6th grade teacher, please let them know about our programs, and direct them to our outreach website, Jr Science & Astronomy (http://starhousediscovery.org/jrsciastro.html)

More Writing

So I recently found the Women in Wetlands blog, and she has a whole series on how scientists have to write (& publish) and suggestions to help people write better. One of her suggestions was to make writing a priority, & the first thing you do when you sit down to work. That way, everything that contributes to procrastinating become interruptions. So I'm going to try that. If I don't have work substituting, then the first thing I do each day will be writing. I may not always write on the blog (I started a story about 10 years ago, this would be a good opportunity to get back to it), sometimes I may be updating content on the StarHouse Discovery Center or the Shire of Cote du Ciel websites, but I'm going to make writing my first priority when I sit down at the computer. I may actually get some grants written, so we can then get a new portable planetarium and start delivering content to the schools once again! I think I will start right now.

OK, found the Moonbots webpage: http://www.moonbots.org/ So far, it just has the same article as on Space Fellowship, which I already posted, but you can sign up to be notified of when the contest begins.