Science Week Activities in Geraldton & Yalgoo August 25, 2009
Posted by astroed in Education.trackback
Last week was a busy one, based in Geraldton in the Mid West region of Western Australia for a range of activities during National Science Week. After a day in Perth on Monday I flew up to Geraldton on Tuesday and went to give a series of talks to the students at Nagle Catholic College. Unfortunately a fight delay meant I arrived late and missed one of my scheduled talks. Luckily I was still able to give a talk about telescopes to the whole of Year 9. Despite having all just run the 1500m for their athletics competition they were engaged and well behaved. The students asked lots of interesting questions.
After a short break I returned to Nagle for an evening of teacher professional development that Mike Francis, Head of Science at Nagle, had organised for me. Teachers from Nagle, Geraldton Senior High School and Geraldton Grammar School attended. The poor weather that had delayed me in Perth persisted in Geraldton, depriving us of the chance to have a viewing night so I covered a range of practical demonstrations and indoor ideas instead. Having left my physio thermaband at home I had had to scout the clothes shops of Geraldton testing elastics to find something suitable for one of my favourite demos – the expanding Universe. Photo below. I was joined at Nagle by Megan Argo, a postdoc from Curtin University who is passionate about astronomy outreach. She was accompanied by a new PhD student at Curtin, Kevin, and his wife Agnes.
Expanding Universe demonstration
Wednesday morning I was up bright and early for an on-air lesson about telescopes at the Meekatharra School of the Air. The students are scattered across stations far and wide in the Mid West region with a few even up at Thursday Island in the Torres Strait. My lesson was well attended and I got some great questions. One of the mothers came on to ask about a strange light they had seen the night before. As with many folk who live in the outback I found her description detailed and helpful. She had seen a very bright light, lasting 5-6 seconds travelling east to west across 160 degrees of the night sky around 8.30pm. It was bright blue and seemed to be giving off sparks. My best guess was either a very bright meteor or possibly some space junk. It later turned out this was seen far and wide with many similar descriptions. Pity I missed it.
On-air lesson at Meekatharra School of the Air
After my lesson I headed out east for a few hours to the outback with Barbara Glenister, the Mentor Principal for school in the Murchison region. We headed for Yalgoo where I and Megan were running a viewing night for students from three schools; Yalgoo Primary, Pia Wadjarri Remote Community School and Sandstone Primary. On the way we stopped to look at some of the stunning wildflowers; the Mid West region of WA is renowned as one of the best spots in the world for wildflowers.
Fortunately the clouds cleared as the afternoon progressed so by evening it was stunningly clear. We had a few 20cm Dobsonians and were able to show the students and parents a range of telescopic sights including Jupiter, the Jewel Box cluster, Omega Centauri and more. The clarity and darkness of the night sky was fantastic. The arch of the zodiacal light was prominent. The clouds of the Milky Way showed amazing gradation and subtlety. Despite being low on the horizon I was able to point the telescope at Eta Carinae and the Keyhole Nebula and see the nebulosity clearly with pinpoint star images, an indication of the quality of the sky. We also pointed out constellation sot the students and tried out the Big Aussie Star Hunt. Needless to say we image 7 in the sky hunt!
The students were excited but tired quickly so we had a chance to spend 20 minutes photographing the sky ourselves before packing up. Luckily for me Barbara was driving so I got back safely to Geraldton late at night.
On the Thursday evening I gave a talk about the scientific work of Galileo. This was the prelude to the Junior Players of Theatre 8’s performance of Brecht’s The Life of Galileo. Their performance was done as 50’s style radio play, with the young actors changing outfits onstage for different characters. The play was somewhat condensed with links provided by a narrator/radio announcer. Overall a very enjoyable night with some fine performances by some of the young cast.
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