Category Archives: Education

Lunar Eavesdropping: Two Men, a Radio, and Apollo 11 (re-run)

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In honor of the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing, I am today “re-running” this slightly edited combination of two posts that originally ran last summer. Today we celebrate the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing.*  I wish those celebrations included more recognition of a unique accomplishment that is part of the Apollo 11 story but that is widely unknown: the work of Larry Baysinger—a man from my home town of Louisville, Kentucky—who independently detected signals from the Apollo 11 astronauts as they walked on the lunar surface.  Baysinger’s accomplishments were recorded and promptly published in the Louisville Courier-Journal, by another Louisvillian by the name of Glenn Rutherford, who later went on to be editor of the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Louisville, The Record. Rutherford was a 23-year-old reporter for the Courier-Journal, and his article about Baysinger was published under the headline “Lunar Eavesdropping:  Louisvillians hear moon walk talk on homemade equipment”.  Baysinger was a … Continue reading →

Apollo Moon Masterpiece

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Way back in time when I was just 11 years old I bought myself a copy of National Geographic Magazine. The February 1969 issue came with a large comprehensive moon map. The map is jam-packed with moon information, including the proposed sites for the Apollo Missions. This Apollo Moon masterpiece shown above is a true thing of beauty. This treasure has been on my wall for decades, an inspiration every time I look at it. The original artwork for the near and far side of the moon was hand-painted by cartographic artist Tibor Toth.   There were no computers in graphic art at the time. The map was designed by Dave Cook who also did most of the writing for the gorgeous snippets of lunar information included in every nook and cranny. Others credited with the work on the map are  Richard Furno, Dave Moore, and Jay Igno. Back then copying and pasting was just exactly that, cutting out text … Continue reading →

Keep up with the Apollo 11 – 50th Anniversary

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    There is an abundance of Apollo 11 50th Aniversary  activities flooding the internet at the moment. Here below are a few that I find interesting and perhaps you have not found them yet. Hopefully, you can access most of them no matter what country you are in  while reading this write up. Share your Apollo 11 Story with NASA a call out to the world One that resonated with me is the NASA call out for oral recordings of peoples personal memories of the moon landing in 1969. This call runs up to December 31st 2019. It is easy to do and there is a list of questions to address in your recording that helps to structure your audio. The questions help to build a picture of the impact of the first moon landing on peoples lives. A few weeks ago I recorded my four minutes worth and sent it in. It felt good to do it, some … Continue reading →

A Fox, a Weaver, and a Woman Named Rona Walk onto the Moon…

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Storytelling represents a key element in the creation and propagation of culture…transmitting survival-relevant information while avoiding the costs involved in the first-hand acquisition of that information….The specific adaptive value of storytelling lies in making sense of non-routine, uncertain, or novel situations…. Or to put it another way, Everybody loves stories! Brother Guy Celestial Storytelling Ancient people observed the sky for a variety of reasons. Some were exceptional observers, recorders, and predictors of astronomical events. While they did not have all the answers, they were observing and asking questions, giving names to what they saw, and connecting what they observed to their daily lives. Certain constellations were used as seasonal markers, informing people when storytelling season began and ended, when it was time to plant and harvest, when it was safe to sail, and when the rainy season would begin. Stars and constellations were also used to find direction, both on land and at sea. Stories were used to remind people … Continue reading →

Symposium to Honor the Legacy of Astrophysicist Dr. Vera Rubin

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A symposium in honor of Dr. Vera Rubin is being held at Georgetown University, June 24-26, 2019. Dr. Rubin (1928-2016) was one of the most important astrophysicists of the 20th and 21st centuries. She received her Ph.D. from Georgetown University in 1954, and pioneered the study of galaxy rotation rates that provided definitive evidence for the existence of Dark Matter. Dr. Rubin was also a fierce and effective advocate for women in science. This symposium honors her legacy by bringing together astrophysicists whose research was made possible by Dr. Rubin’s discoveries; they will discuss the latest developments in the field, and the connections with Dr. Rubin’s discoveries. Symposium organizers expect some sessions will be particularly interesting to those involved in educating the next generation of scientists and scientifically engaged citizens. Some of the lectures/discussions include: Keynote lecture by Dr. Abigail Fraeman from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory – she will discuss the exploration that she leads of the Vera Rubin … Continue reading →

Cruinniu na nOg 2019 – Apollo 11 Drawing Workshop

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  Cruinniu na nOg  means the meeting of the young in the Irish language. Creative activities are funded on that special day by the local authorities all over the country. The overarching body is  called Creative Ireland. Ireland as a country therefore  backs creativity nationwide for all her children. My drawing workshop Let’s Go To The Moon – Apollo 11 became part of this government initiative to stimulate creativity. Cruinniu na nOg is aimed to encourage children to get involved in new experiences while creating and also having fun.   Castlebar Library – Cruinniu na nOg The  first venue on June 15th, was  Castlebar library Co Mayo.  A really good presentation space with enthusiastic staff to help set up. An  audience of  young children along with a few parents showed total interested in the Apollo 11 mission.  Some of the children were very well versed in Apollo mission details. It is so refreshing to listen to children talking about the … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: New Worlds

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This entry is part 24 of 185 in the series Across the Universe

First published in The Tablet in June, 2007; we published it here in 2015 In early 2007, a team lead by Stéphane Udry of the Geneva Observatory announced the discovery around the red dwarf star Gliese 581 of a planet that is only eight times the mass of Earth and about 50 per cent bigger in radius. Orbiting close to its sun, its year is less than two weeks long; but because that star is so small and dim compared to ours, temperatures on the planet should range between zero and 40 degrees Celsius (about 30 to 100 Fahrenheit). Room temperature. Water should be liquid there, perhaps covering its surface with oceans ripe for life. At least, I hope it’s covered in oceans. Swimming would be easier than walking on a planet where the gravity is three and a half times that of Earth. The star is only 20 light years away from us; robot spaceships in the next 100 years … Continue reading →

Inspiring a New Generation of Scientists and Space Explorers

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I was at STARBASE One at Selfridge Air National Guard Base on June 11 & 12, 2019 as part of their Summer Academy – I taught the students how to fly rockets in Kerbal Space Program. I created several different rockets for them to launch: a small and large sounding rocket, and a crewed sub-orbital and orbital vessel; I related the sub-orbital and orbital flights to those of Alan Shepard and John Glenn. Their first rocket was aimed down at the launchpad, so they got to see something explode! For some reason, the students seem to get a kick out of this… but it does show that rockets in KSP can crash. When the students launched sounding rockets, I mentioned the Keweenaw Rocket Range; Michigan launched its first sounding rocket into space on Jan. 29, 1971! My wife and I visited the launchpad in 2016. When I showed the students how orbits are raised, a common comment was “that’s weird!” Yup! Orbital mechanics sure … Continue reading →

What Do the Summer Sky, a Japanese Festival, and a Chinese Lunar Mission Have in Common?

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You can add to this list festivals in China and Korea! Some of this Blog is taken from an activity that Nancy and I developed many years ago for our teacher professional development workshop, Project ARTIST (Astronomy-Related Teacher In-Service Training), that Nancy mentioned in her last Blog, “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer.” The activity is called Magpies and the Milky Way. The following information about the Tanabata Festival comes from a Japanese travel guide. Tanabata, also known as the “star festival,” takes place on the 7th day of the 7th month of the year, when, according to a Chinese legend, the two stars Altair and Vega, which are usually[sic] separated from each other by the Milky Way, are able to meet…. One popular Tanabata custom is to write one’s wishes on a piece of paper and hang that piece of paper on a specially erected bamboo tree, in the hope that the wishes come true. Colorful Tanabata festivals are … Continue reading →

“When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer”

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In Walt Whitman’s poem, “When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer,” the speaker—perhaps Whitman himself—concludes his description of an astronomy presentation with these words: Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars. This reaction would bring joy to innumerable astronomy Education and Public Outreach presenters. A student who trades a passive experience to go outside, look up, and observe firsthand the complexity and beauty of the night sky—Yippee! Active and Passive Learning The National Training Laboratories’ “Pyramid of Learning” has been around for decades, attracting both fans and skeptics of its reported results. However, the overall structure is worth considering. Simply summarized, the Pyramid divides methods of learning into passive (lecture, reading, audio-visual, demonstration) and active, or participatory, (discussion, practice doing, teaching others). The Pyramid of Learning also assigns average retention rates to each method of presentation, with the small tip of … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Truth, Beauty, and a Good Lawyer

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This entry is part 23 of 185 in the series Across the Universe

This column first appeared in The Tablet in May, 2007; we republished it here in May, 2015 In 2006-2007, I took a year-long chair at Fordham University, where I was required to present a public lecture each semester. In the fall term, I simply gave a reading from my latest book-in-progress. But the spring was trickier. Mostly I wanted an excuse to show pretty pictures; why else did they hire an astronomer to speak? Looking for an academic hook to hang my talk on, I decided to use these images to explore the nature of beauty. What makes pictures of stars and planets beautiful? Is a human connection – the astronaut in the frame, the dot in the background that’s actually planet Earth – necessary for us to awed by nature? Does knowing the science behind the image add to its beauty? These questions had been inspired by my ongoing conversations with a Fordham philosophy professor, Sister Joan Roccasalvo CSJ. Her take centers on … Continue reading →

Space Camp Joy

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Children spinning their little handmade Saturn models with joy !! At Easter  I ran a small space camp for children. It was over three mornings in Louisburgh Co Mayo.The venue was Books at One, the local community bookshop.  We packed a lot of things into the three mornings, in fact, I had too much planned. Better too much than too little in my experience. Space Camp joy abounded ! Day 1 Space Camp We built paper rockets that we blew into space (in the room). I have a  box of interesting forever goodies. These are intended to be made into something at some time. In the box, I found some triangular stickers. These had rocket holograms on them !! Perfect for rocket fins, the kids agreed and they loved them. The stickers came from Recreate Ireland which encourages creativity through reuse. We checked out the news on The Planetary Society’s Light Sail 2 project. New information for  the children so … Continue reading →