By Daniel Rudd
On the 29th of July Year 4 got to experience what it's like to see the stars from all different views. We had been learning about Night and Day/ Spinning in Space for two weeks, so we knew a bit already.
At 9:30, Year 4 Blue and I went off to the hall to enter a new Galaxy of Learning.
When we arrived, we took off our school shoes, putting them against the wall in pairs. We then walked into the part of the hall which was the music room from Monday to Thursday in single file.
When we arrived in the music room we saw, to our immense surprise, a big blow up dome with a part popping out. We then met the Planetarium expert, Geoff, who asked us not to touch the Dome but to sit down in front of him. He told us a few rules to remember before sending us off into the Dome.
When we were seated inside the Dome, the tension was almost unbearable. Finally, Geoff turned off the lights and fixed a cylinder into a gadget so that the stars and galaxies turned on. He then zoomed in on one of the galaxies, in this case the Milky Way Galaxy, so close that we could see earth. He then started explaining how the earth rotates which causes day and night. He then told us how the Moon orbits the Earth and the Earth orbits the Sun which sounds very complex to the ear.
When he had finished telling Year 4 Blue about this he told us how the Sun is one of the many stars in our galaxy, although it is the only star in our Solar System.
Geoff then told Year 4 Blue about the moon, including how the moon is always there except it has a day and night side (we only can see the day side). This usually would only cause the effect of one shape but the Earth does rotate while the moon orbits it so we have a crescent moon which curves in the outline of a semi circle. There’s also a full moon, which is when we can only see the day side of the moon, which makes it full to our site. There are others, but these are the main ones.
He then went on to tell us about waxing and waning moons. A waxing moon is a moon that’s in the transformation from the crescent to the full moon. And the waning is a moon descending in size from full to crescent.
He then got onto the topic of Solar Systems - which we learnt are made when a planet circles a star, in our case the sun. He had us well and truly engaged by this point. We also learnt that there are over 30,000 other solar systems in our galaxy and most of these have been discovered in the 21st century.
Then someone called out asking why is a planet called a planet. He replied by saying it’s because planets move or wander and in another language it means ‘the wanderer’.
After this Geoff told us a very interesting fact - we live in a large galaxy called the Milky Way. This was very interesting because we can see the Milky Way from Earth, I certainly thought meant it must be another galaxy.
After this, we came to the most exciting part of the whole incursion … we learnt about the constellations in the sky.
To demonstrate, Geoff projected a picture whichhad dot to dots of many things, like centaurs and people from children’s novels. These he told us were dot to dot using the stars made thousands of years ago by ancient Greeks.
He told us what he had projected was from a winters night sky at 7 o’clock. He then told us we were going to have a challenge - he showed us three winter constellations with the dot to dot lines in place and then changed the projector so that there were no dot to dot lines and asked us to see if we could find the dot to dot constellations from winter. We all applied ourselves to the challenge. Geoff told us that the three winter constellations we were looking for were a centaur, a scorpion and the Southern Cross.
Jeff then gave tips on how we could remember the shapes of these constellations. The first one, the centaur, was holding a bow and had a quiver with arrows on his back. The bow was cocked. Jeff told us that when we were looking for the centaur, to look for three stars in a curved line which would be the bow.
The next one was the Southern Cross, which is on the Australian flag. This constellation is found in the Southern Hemisphere only and is pointing south. He told that in order to find this you look either for the two pointers (which are bright) or a tight knit group of stars forming a cross.
The final constellation was Scorpia, the Scorpion. The way to spot this constellation is to look for an S in the sky. Naturally this will be Scorpia.
Geoff then changed the projector so we were looking at the winter's night stars normally and asked us to find the southern cross. We all found it no problems and he couldn’t suppress a smile at our speed.
After this, he asked us to find the centaur. We remembered him telling us to look for the curved line of stars. We all found this a lot harder than the southern cross. Some people never found it or found the wrong thing.
Finally he asked us find Scorpia which in some our cases was already found easily because its S stood out.
Interestingly enough, Jeff then changed the projector again this time to a summer’s night and showed us some summer constellations.
We learnt about Orion, which is a man with a belt holding a scabbard for his sword. His belt is part of the saucepan. He wears a skirt while holding a shield covered in his insignia which is a wolf’s head. Jeff told us that to find this man in amongst the stars you need to look for the two shoulder stars which are very bright and easy to spot.
He then explained that around 50,000 years ago the Aboriginal People invented a constellation called the Emu. It is easily seen because its body has no stars in it so there is a clear space. Its legs are quite fat but otherwise it is immensely perfect.
A few more interesting facts we learnt:
This incursion was an exceptional learning experience for Year 4 and has opened our eyes to a galaxy of endless learning. I certainly learnt a lot and had a great time.
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