Students at Haahuupayak School got a hands-on lesson on our solar system thanks to a visiting scientist from the National Research Council of Canada.
The visit took place on Nov. 24, and came through the Scientists and Inventors in the Schools program, said principal Gio Musatto.
“We had the Science World program come by on their tour,” Musatto explained. “I wrote them a letter to thank them for coming, and they told me they had a program on the Solar System. I said, ‘Come on over.’”
On Tuesday, Ha-Shilth-Sa dropped in on the first of three presentations, this one with Mrs. Frank’s Grade 4-5 class.
Dr. Jim Hesser, who describes himself as “semi-retired,” has been doing presentations in B.C. schools since the 1980’s. It is all part of a lifelong love of the stars, he said.
“I got interested in astronomy and space when I was in elementary school,” Hesser said. “I just really enjoy it and I feel a sense of responsibility, because I have been paid to do my hobby for my entire career, so I think it’s worth giving something back.”
The session was part slide presentation and part hands-on demonstration using simple physical models. Students were also welcome to throw in questions.
Some of the slide images were stunning, and illustrated the capabilities of new technologies such as satellite telescopes and enhanced imaging. But in many cases, it still comes down to one scientist and a telescope with a clear view of the sky.
One slide showed the Milky Way, shot from a new, high-tech telescope located high in the mountains in northern Chile.
“This is a picture we couldn’t take in Canada,” he explained.
But he countered that with a slide of the Plaskett II Telescope in Victoria, installed in May 1918.
“It’s almost 100 years old, but it’s still in use and it still works,” Hesser said. He later verified that with brilliant images of the September lunar eclipse that was visible from Vancouver Island.
When Hesser flashed a slide of the planets and their relative sizes, the students readily named them off, in order.
“Do you have names for them in your language?” he asked. “I would really like to learn them.”
A series of satellite shots of sunspots and solar eruptions drew “ooh” and “ahhs” from the class. But those solar events have an effect on earth, Hesser explained.
“How many of you have ever seen the Northern Lights?” he asked.
About half the class raised their hands.
“In Ahousaht,” one boy exclaimed.
“We never see them in Victoria. There’s too much light. You can see them better when you’re out of the city,” Hesser said.
The Northern Lights, or Aurora Borealis, are the result of energy released from sunspots and solar flares, which are then captured by the earth’s magnetic field. They are typically visible in Northern Canada, but are sometimes seen further south.
“Are we talking about Princess Aurora?” one girl quipped. No.
Hesser reminded the students that all life on earth exists thanks to energy thrown off by the sun.
“What would happen if the sun left us?” one student asked.
“The sun’s force of gravity holds us in orbit,” Hesser said, adding that the sun completes one orbit of the Milky Way in about 200 million years. “But we go with the sun. The sun is really big and it holds onto us.”
After a presentation on solar and lunar eclipses, Hesser switched to some physical models to demonstrate the seasons and moon phases.
The “sun” was seriously low-tech: a single-bulb table lamp with the shade removed, set on a table in the centre of the room. But in a semi-darkened room, the light source was enough to illuminate a globe in Hesser’s hands as he circled the students, explaining how the changing angle of the sun creates the seasons.
For lunar phases, each student received a white plastic “moon” to observe the changing shadow patterns when lit from different angles.
By popular request, Hesser put up a sequence of satellite images showing Jupiter and its famous Red Spot.
“The Red Spot was first observed by Galileo 400 years ago, with his crude telescope,” Hesser said. It’s still visible, but lately, it has been shrinking slightly.”
A series of images of craters, first on the moon, then on Mars, set up the finale, which allowed the students to handle an actual piece of outer space.
“How many people think we don’t have craters on earth?” Hesser asked.
When half the students raised their hands, he flashed an image of a round, 100-kilometre-wide lake in Quebec, taken by Space Shuttle astronauts.
“Something struck the earth 200 million years ago and made that crater,” he said.
He followed that with a shot of the Barringer Crater in Arizona.
“It’s 1.6 kilometres in diameter and was created when a meteor struck the earth 50,000 years ago,” he said, holding up a small shiny rock. “And I have a piece of the Barringer Meteorite right here...”
The Barringer fragment contains enough iron to hold a magnet. Hesser produced a second, much larger meteorite, weighing several kilograms, that resembled a large chunk of coal. Students were invited to handle it and to examine both outer space artifacts to wrap up the session.
Hesser agreed that the Haahuupayak Grade 4 class really knew their stuff when it comes to the solar system.
“These kids are just so much more exposed than we were, growing up in the 1940s and ‘50s,” he said. “Space and dinosaurs are really keen topics.”
Currently, the B.C. school curriculum requires that the solar system be taught in Grade 3.
“But now the curriculum is being changed, and how that is going to work out in the future is much less clear to me,” he said. “I understand there is going to be more choice on the part of the teachers on what elements they want to include [in the curriculum] or where.”
But based on the continuing fascination with our solar system and outer space, Hesser said is confident that B.C. students will be learning about the stars for a long time to come.
