13 replies to this topic

[Steve Fisher]

The Salt Lake Astronomical Society is going to sponsor and support a Venus transit event at the new Natural History Museum of Utah in June. Link to a simply awesome museum

I'm trying to come up with "hands on" types of demonstrations. We have speakers, a portable star dome, lots of telescopes, and some demonstrations already but I'm looking for ideas you might have.

We want them to be short, interactive and as hands on as possible. We will have a hard time tying people up for any long periods of time.

What better place than here on CN to see what ideas you might have.

Thanks in advance.

[Ira]

Use an orrery to demo the solar system.
Show off some meteorites and let people handle them.

/Ira

[tedbnh]

For the Venus transit, I am making flip books for people to see what the planets are doing during the event. I'm attaching here a DOC file and an animated GIF of what you see when you flip through the flipbook. To see what the flip book looks like, download the GIF file. To make the flip book, download and print the DOC file on 4x6" white, unlined index cards in your photo printer. (You can use 4x6" photo paper if you want but the index cards are cheaper and sturdier.) Put a binder clip on the left side and you are ready to go.

Attached Thumbnails

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[tedbnh]

Oops, looks like the DOC file is 900K, too big for an attachment on CN. If you'd like the DOC file, send me a PM with your email address and I'll email it to you.

[Steve Fisher]

Thanks guys, I'll put out some feelers to the club members and see if we can raise an orrery or someone working on building one. Ted, the flip cards sound great. Watch for the PM.

You wouldn't think that "hands on" would change every thing so much. I appreciate all the ideas we can come up with.

[Ira]

Love the animated gif. I tried downloading it, but it wouldn't reanimate. How do you make it animate in a browser?

/Ira

[Jason B]

We are doing a solar system to scale model in our front yard of the our observatory on our May 5 "Astronomy Day at Fox Park" event. We will let kids volunteer to hold the different planets, etc at the proper distances and sizes to fit our area.

[Steve Fisher]

Jason:

Thanks! A "planet walk" is one of the things we have in mind. We are hoping to find some great models of the planets.

I've got to find some telescope kits or parts "on the cheap" that we can have kids put together and take apart. Anyone have any suggestions?

[Ira]

Thanks guys, I'll put out some feelers to the club members and see if we can raise an orrery or someone working on building one. Ted, the flip cards sound great. Watch for the PM.

You wouldn't think that "hands on" would change every thing so much. I appreciate all the ideas we can come up with.

This is an orrery I bought on eBay. It is very nice and works well.

http://www.ebay.com/...#ht_1884wt_1413

/Ira

[Ira]

Buy an inexpensive meteorite that people can hold and pass around. A nice big iron is always impressive. (Well, a nice big iron is not that cheap, but you can use it over and over again forever.)

/Ira

[Ira]

These are too expensive to give away but you might want to offer some of these kits for sale and do assembly and instructional programs around them:

http://www.green-wit...Model_Kits.html

Or you could get some surplus optics and build your own scopes/binoculars out of towel paper rolls. Just like little Galilleos!

/Ira

[buddyjesus]

Thanks for sharing that link Ira. I want a Galileo replica scope now to do the Galileo club pin. So pretty!

[markstar46]

At a recent event I organized, I drew a scale model of the solar system on the parking lot using colored driveway chalk, with the planets in their relative positions and oriented so that the graphic agreed with the planet positions in the sky.

I eliminated Pluto to make it more manageable and didn't attempt to scale the planets with the Sun. Just the angular positions and distances from the Sun.

This was a great hit with all. By standing on the Earth, with their backs to the Sun (representing nighttime), it explains why we can only see certain planets and not others. Also great for explaining that a planet on the opposite side of the Sun really does mean that and that's why we can't see it.

Get them to help you draw it out if possible! I used this guide and scaled it larger to fit the space I had. Here's another option.

[Steve Fisher]

Some Great Ideas!
Thanks