Lunar Eclipse (of the Heart!)

Greetings students, parents, and other bipedal lifeforms.  So sorry for the lapse in posting (who’d have thunk that I would get “angry” emails about me not blog posting regularly?). But I am back.  With news of a…

Lunar Eclipse!

These are two pictures that I took on August 8, 2007 (52 months ago, according to Flickr).

The good news is that something similar will be happening again, and will be visible form here in Calgary. The bad news is that it happens very early, Saturday morning.

Partial eclipse begins: 5:46 a.m.
Total eclipse begins: 7:06 a.m.
Greatest eclipse: 7:32 a.m.
Total eclipse ends: 7:57 a.m.
Partial eclipse ends: 9:18 a.m.

The link below brings you to a podcast as well as a longer explanation of what and where to look for it.

From EarthSky.org:

The last eclipse of 2011 will be a total lunar eclipse on December 10. Depending on where you live on Earth’s globe, the eclipse will happen either before dawn or that evening. Much of North America will be in a position to watch the eclipse of the full moon before sunrise on Saturday, December 10. The far northwestern parts of North America (and also Hawaii) get to watch the entire eclipse from start to finish. The eastern and southern parts of North America will see only the beginning stages of the eclipse or no eclipse at all.

Since this is the closest full moon to the December 21 winter solstice, we in the Northern Hemisphere often call this particular full moon the Long Night Moon.

The end of the world (as we know it)

… is not happening anytime soon.

In other news, this asteroid will be passing pretty close to Earth, between the Moon and us, tonight.

Sometime tonight, Asteroid 2005 YU55 will pass with 324 000 km of Earth. Luna is about 385 000 km from us. So this is a very very close call. The closest such passage in 35 years.

From the Time Science Website:

Astronomers have known for several years that Nov. 8, 2011, would end one of two ways: either uneventfully or with a massive global cataclysm that would leave a 4-mile (6.5 km) crater somewhere on the planet, unleash 70-ft. (21 m) tsunami waves and potentially claim tens of thousands of victims. The messiness, they knew, would begin at 6:28 p.m. E.T.

 

Thanks to Cliff Stoll

Hey Cliff, remember me?  Ted Buracas.  You sent me a Klein Bottle this year. Well, I went and showed it to my grade 6 classes (along with your TEDTalk video).  They sorta liked it.  A. Lot.  So much so, that they wanted to send you a little video greeting.

Hello from David Thompson School, Calgary!

6D Science

6C Science

… a mass of incandescent gas …

Repeat after me: the Sun is not burning, the Sun is not burning, the Sun is not burning.

(It is a ball of glowing gases, heated by nuclear reactions.)

To help my grade 6 students (64% got this question wrong on a recent quiz), I present the band, They Might Be Giants.

Nothing to see here…

Nothing, that is, but the turn of Earth and phases of Luna.

Talking about the phases of Luna (Selene, or – merely – the Moon to the rest of youse), someone pointed out that my handball was presenting as a waxing crescent. So dropped everything (as we often do in my class),  gathered around my desk, and took a look at how things look in real sunlight.

One of those “teachable moments” that teachers are in constant search of.

Not only that, but with some careful observation, we were also able to observe Terra actually… SPINNING.  There, before our very eyes, we saw the shadow one the ball moving.

I ask my students to consider this: this is nothing new, nothing that they haven’t seen or know about.  Earth spins, shadows move, this is nothing special. Nothing special, that is, until they look at this with a scientist’s eye.

And now it all makes sense…

Look… it’s a bird, it’s a plane…

It’s the International Space Station.

Tomorrow night (Tuesday) at around 6:50 pm (early evening) Calgarians will have a great chance to lay eyes on the ISS pass (sorta) over Calgary. Here’s the orbital data:

From the Starry Skies Website:

First to keep in mind is that while we are used to seeing celestial objects rising in the east and setting in the west – such isn’t the case with either the shuttle of ISS, which is why it’s very handy to have NASA provide the sightings times for you. Generally, the station and shuttle move from west to east across the sky, looking much like a slow moving star.

The best times to view are just after sunset or before sunrise when the vehicles are reflecting the most sunlight and are easiest to see. A few days before and after the shuttle docks with the ISS is a great time to see both of them as the shuttle will be close to the station and you may see a double pass. Currently (as of June 10/07) the shuttle is docked with the station.

There area actually two opportunities to see the ISS:

ISS	Tue Nov 01/06:53 PM			44 above WSW
ISS	Tue Nov 01/08:29 PM			14 above WSW

Dance of the Seasons

I’ll let you watch some of the nonsense we’ve been doing in Grade 6 Science class before providing commentary.

Please do not judge us!

And now for an explanation…

We are learning about the seasons.  Besides being something that the Province requires us to teach (and grade 6s to learn), it’s the source of many misconceptions. But when asked what truly causes the seasons, the one word that should come to mind is this… TILT.

And so to demonstrate this idea, I came up with something of a seasonal dance, wherein as we tilt at the waist and rotate counterclockwise, we can mimmick the various inclinations of Terra as she revolves around Sol.

If this is confusing to you, please ask your grade 6 student for a better explanation.

The North is our head,  the South is our, um… tailbone.  And as we revolve around Sol, our two hemispheres present themselves more directly to the rays of Sol, and so experience preferential warming (or cooling) known as summer (or winter).

As I say, ask the kids about it.

New Grade 8 Email Update

A new email update to grade 8 Parents has just gone out.  If you haven’t received one, please contact me through email, and I will get you on the list.

I am: mister.buracas@gmail.com

Click through to read the email message.

No one will read this!

No one will read this… but everyone should.

It is long, it relates to nothing we are doing in science (grade 6 or grade 8), and it has no pretty pictures, diagrams, or animations.  Well just one, of Richard Feynman, a very (VERY!) smart guy.

This is Feynman:

Once again, let me repeat:  no one will read this article.  Prove me wrong. Comment or email me.   mister.buracas@gmail.com

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Feynman on Education in Brazil

From Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!:

In regard to education in Brazil, I had a very interesting experience. I was teaching a group of students who would ultimately become teachers, since at that time there were not many opportunities in Brazil for a highly trained person in science. These students had already had many courses, and this was to be their most advanced course in electricity and magnetism – Maxwell’s equations, and so on.

The university was located in various office buildings throughout the city, and the course I taught met in a building which overlooked the bay.

I discovered a very strange phenomenon: I could ask a question, which the students would answer immediately. But the next time I would ask the question – the same subject, and the same question, as far as I could tell – they couldn’t answer it at all! For instance, one time I was talking about polarized light, and I gave them all some strips of polaroid.

Moons of Jupiter

I saw the Moons of Jupiter, Saturday night.  They looked like this:

It’s amazing what you can see, just with binoculars. Mine are 8×40 – 8x magnification with a 40mm objective lens.  Much better than what Galileo had back in the day.