The young stargazers (8-16 years), youth wing of the Society for Popular Astronomy, twitter feed is getting a bit of a push on, so I thought I’d add an entry on some education bits and bobs.
Starting off with the young ‘uns. Kids under 14 are requested to make a piece of art (whatever they want to call art) for the European Space Agency’s website on the theme of living in space. But be quick, entries must be in by the 31st of July (this Saturday). If they do miss the deadline, don’t worry, there’ll be a new theme next month.
For those over seven in Kendal, there’s a talk at the library by Stuart Atkinson for ages seven and above on Friday. The talk poster is below:
The Hubble Space Telescope team have awarded special mentions to education concepts using their data. Gold Stars honours were awarded to fourteen different teams, such as Starry Critters, who produced these cards.
Students in the US have been flying weightless in the Vomit Comet as they test their concepts for Cubesats – small, cheap satellites. The concept getting tested in the microgravity situation was an accordion like device that deployed solar panels more efficiently than before. Videos and further explanations are here.
If you want to learn about Galileo, or even meet part of him, then there’s a museum in Florence where you can do just that – it is reviewed by NASA’s Blueshift Blog in this post.
A slightly less gruesome way to learn about the rivalry between the ideas of Hooke and Newton can be found embodied in a new chandelier, currently suspended in the Council Chamber of the Royal Society, of which they were both members. The installment has already scooped the creator 6,000 euros in a Spanish competition.
But maybe you’d prefer to learn not about scientists, but the ideas they came up with, but don’t like all the long words. Here is Relativity in words of four letters or less to assist you. Once you’ve absorbed all that, then there’s always a lucid explanation of String Theory for afters. Testing will commence in the comments section of this blog…
Science education must be getting somewhere as in the following advert, count the number of planets:
…probably something to do with the author of this forthcoming book…
On Saturday, those in London might be interested in knowing the Society for Popular Astronomy will be having its usual set of lectures in its quarterly meeting. Those lectures will be eventually placed online.
More videos will be filmed by the Sky at Night Magazine at the Salisbury Star Party on the 13th of August (the day before the Kendal Solar System Scale Model and during the twitter meteorwatch). They are interested in your help if you are attending.
The AAAS is looking to award early career scientists for outreach efforts in the US. Click here for further details.
And finally, it is possible for people to take to the stars amongst the stars a little too much, as the commander of the International Space Station found when responding to a love letter sent to him from a fan eight hundred kilometres below at the closest. He believes she is really into the whole space thing and he just happens to be someone she can use to embody it all.
Where the Sun hits the sky 