My students need telescopes to (safely) recreate Galileo's discovery that the sun is actually spinning! Also, these will be set up for kids & parents on Open House Night.
The sun, our very own star, is actually spinning in place... spinning in the same direction in which all the planets orbit. By using telescopes to safely project a solar image on a screen, kids will observe & track sunspots over a one week period, and actually watch the sun rotate!
My California middle school's student population is ethnically, linguistically, and economically diverse.
Many of our students are recent immigrants, and many of their parents brought them here to gain educational opportunities that were not available in their home countries. My students are smart, optimistic, and eager to learn more about astronomy, a topic that interests every student!
My Project
I'm hoping to acquire four beginner-level telescopes, which will be put to two uses. First, we'll use them to observe and record sunspot motion, just as Galileo did centuries ago (but using our telescopes as image projectors, so that we can do this in complete safety). Second, student docents from my eighth grade classes will set up and supervise telescopes at our annual Open House Night, so students and parents can view the moon, stars, and even planets!
Astronomy is a unit that nearly all students eagerly look forward to.
In my class, we make a big deal out of astronomy, even working together to build an indoor planetarium in my classroom, composed entirely of student work and explained by student docents, for Open House Night. With the addition of telescopes, we can take the astronomy experience out of the classroom, and into the skies. Please help me to make my students into first-hand astronomers!
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