Metro School; dark skies
Last week started on a holiday, but Tuesday-Friday I had my first days on-duty as a "Fellow" at the Metro School.
The teacher I am working with, Thomas, is teaching two chem classes (in the mornings) and one physics class in the afternoon. Class periods at this school are two hours long, which means there are only three periods each day. Every class meets five days a week for a 12-week trimester, and then between trimesters students switch classes. It may be that some courses, like math perhaps, come in sequences, but physics does not; we have to do the whole curriculum in these 12 weeks.
Since he has only one physics class this trimester, I will basically be there every afternoon. Later in the school year when he has more than one, I will probably not go in every day, but do something like work with two of his classes three days a week or somesuch. Thomas' background is not physics (I believe it's chemistry), so he's very happy to have me around to help him present the content. He especially wants my help with putting together labs for the students. Naturally, after my workshop experiences, I'm going to be leaning towards modeling-style activities.
I spent several hours driving around town on Saturday looking for battery-powered cars that will move at a constant velocity (a staple piece of equipment for physics modeling courses) and came home with absolutely nothing. I was honestly kind of shocked that such a seemingly basic toy (which was a huge hit under the brand name Stompers in the 80s) just doesn't exist any more. I saw plenty of friction and pull-back cars, cars that you shake, RCs, etc., but nothing that you simply turn on and then moves in a straight line on its own.
Anyway, I've enjoyed the experience so far, although it feels like there is a lot of "downtime" during the period where the students are working but not in need of me walking around the room to answer questions. I guess that might mean that what they're doing is too easy for them (for some of the students at least), or too hard such that they are just staring at it (I've definitely seen some of that). I'm not used to that. On the other hand, maybe the students just aren't used to asking questions the way I expect them too. It may be a difference of classroom cultures. I have noticed that Thomas doesn't seem to circulate very much when they're working.
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Today Slashdot linked to an article in the New Yorker about light pollution. It's been a while since I read anything about it and got my ire raised, although when I was at Hocking Hills last month I remember being really impressed by how different the sky looked there. The article mentions how this one dark-sky guy gets tips from friends about these great dark sites they found, and then he goes to check them out, and they're terrible. Most people -- to some extent including myself despite my professional astronomy past -- have absolutely no context for even making judgements about what a truly dark sky looks like. I think the quote in the article which made me saddest was this:
"For someone standing on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon on a moonless night, the brightest feature of the sky is not the Milky Way but the glow of Las Vegas, a hundred and seventy-five miles away."
That is seriously tragic. At one of the greatest natural wonders on the entire planet, the sky glow from a city nearly two hundred miles away is still brighter than the Milky Way. I remember on one of my two observing trips to Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, my old advisor Dr. Janes and I were standing outside the dome checking the cloud cover, and there was a glow on the horizon that I asked him about, since I thought it was the wrong direction to be Flagstaff (which is both small and a pretty dark city becuase of Lowell being there). It was Phoenix, which is over a hundred miles from the mesa on which our telescope was situated. That seems almost trivial now, although admittedly Phoenix is probably a much less gaudy city than Vegas.
Still, that evening was the first time I realized how enormous of an impact a bright city can have on viewing even if you're not in the city. The idea that you have to travel more than hundred miles away before you can really escape its influence is depressing.
Also, reading that article made me really miss doing astronomy. I think I'm going to email Perkins Observatory right now and inquire about volunteering with them...
The teacher I am working with, Thomas, is teaching two chem classes (in the mornings) and one physics class in the afternoon. Class periods at this school are two hours long, which means there are only three periods each day. Every class meets five days a week for a 12-week trimester, and then between trimesters students switch classes. It may be that some courses, like math perhaps, come in sequences, but physics does not; we have to do the whole curriculum in these 12 weeks.
Since he has only one physics class this trimester, I will basically be there every afternoon. Later in the school year when he has more than one, I will probably not go in every day, but do something like work with two of his classes three days a week or somesuch. Thomas' background is not physics (I believe it's chemistry), so he's very happy to have me around to help him present the content. He especially wants my help with putting together labs for the students. Naturally, after my workshop experiences, I'm going to be leaning towards modeling-style activities.
I spent several hours driving around town on Saturday looking for battery-powered cars that will move at a constant velocity (a staple piece of equipment for physics modeling courses) and came home with absolutely nothing. I was honestly kind of shocked that such a seemingly basic toy (which was a huge hit under the brand name Stompers in the 80s) just doesn't exist any more. I saw plenty of friction and pull-back cars, cars that you shake, RCs, etc., but nothing that you simply turn on and then moves in a straight line on its own.
Anyway, I've enjoyed the experience so far, although it feels like there is a lot of "downtime" during the period where the students are working but not in need of me walking around the room to answer questions. I guess that might mean that what they're doing is too easy for them (for some of the students at least), or too hard such that they are just staring at it (I've definitely seen some of that). I'm not used to that. On the other hand, maybe the students just aren't used to asking questions the way I expect them too. It may be a difference of classroom cultures. I have noticed that Thomas doesn't seem to circulate very much when they're working.
---
Today Slashdot linked to an article in the New Yorker about light pollution. It's been a while since I read anything about it and got my ire raised, although when I was at Hocking Hills last month I remember being really impressed by how different the sky looked there. The article mentions how this one dark-sky guy gets tips from friends about these great dark sites they found, and then he goes to check them out, and they're terrible. Most people -- to some extent including myself despite my professional astronomy past -- have absolutely no context for even making judgements about what a truly dark sky looks like. I think the quote in the article which made me saddest was this:
"For someone standing on the North Rim of the Grand Canyon on a moonless night, the brightest feature of the sky is not the Milky Way but the glow of Las Vegas, a hundred and seventy-five miles away."
That is seriously tragic. At one of the greatest natural wonders on the entire planet, the sky glow from a city nearly two hundred miles away is still brighter than the Milky Way. I remember on one of my two observing trips to Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, my old advisor Dr. Janes and I were standing outside the dome checking the cloud cover, and there was a glow on the horizon that I asked him about, since I thought it was the wrong direction to be Flagstaff (which is both small and a pretty dark city becuase of Lowell being there). It was Phoenix, which is over a hundred miles from the mesa on which our telescope was situated. That seems almost trivial now, although admittedly Phoenix is probably a much less gaudy city than Vegas.
Still, that evening was the first time I realized how enormous of an impact a bright city can have on viewing even if you're not in the city. The idea that you have to travel more than hundred miles away before you can really escape its influence is depressing.
Also, reading that article made me really miss doing astronomy. I think I'm going to email Perkins Observatory right now and inquire about volunteering with them...