I’m Obsolete
Oh no, how do I retract years of teaching a science unit that is now obsolete?
Recently, Kepler Mission announced the discovery of 1,235 possible new planets.
It was bad enough when they dropped Pluto.
Sorry, former students of mine…you gotta get rid of that Solar System mobile.
One science unit I taught to Kindergarteners and first graders was the solar system. We did creative drama in experiencing the rotation of Earth around the sun while the moon circled Earth as it turned on its axis. Kids were always fascinated how we got night and day.
I was that teacher who incorporated Music and Art with Science. We all sang:
Good morning, merry sunshine,
How did you wake so soon?
You’ve scared the little stars away,
And shined away the moon;
I saw you go to sleep last night
Before I ceased my playing.
How did you get way over here,
And where have you been staying?
I never go to sleep, my child,
I just go round to see,
The little children of the East,
Who rise and wait for me;
I wake up all the birds and bees,
And flowers on my way,
And come to see the little child,
Who stayed out late to play.
Words and music are given in Zuchtmann, Frederick. New American Music Reader. New York: Macmillan, 1903, page 29:
We ended the unit by making 9 paper Mache planets by size and color and a golden sun. They were suspended with strings attached to a paper plate and swayed and moved in the wind, nine planets around the sun. I still see my students carefully and proudly taking their mobile home. And parents of K-lst graders are known to save their art work forever.
When they dropped Pluto, I thought of calling each student : Please snip off Pluto off your mobile.
Can you imagine what my students would have to do now if I were still in their classrooms? Class, we’re making thousands of paper Mache planets for a mobile, and yes, they still revolve around the sun.
I miss those good old days when we could string up 9 planets and a sun.
But this is what science is all about…it has to be written in pencil.
When I was just a tot, I was kidnapped … and taken to Pluto. The people there were wonderful & let me play all kinds of games. I even got to ride Plutonian horses. I will miss that place oh so much.
Sigh,
Tony
Maybe you’ll be lucky and Venus will kidnap you next. Just don’t go to Mars because if men are like Mars , that planet can ‘t be any good and they will corrupt you beyond repair.
Your description of your life on Pluto is like being on a Merry-go-round. Nice, wish I had been kidnapped, too.
THe following is from Charles Pellegrino:
(Charles Pellegrino, author of more than a dozen books, specializes in paleobiology, nuclear propulsion systems for space exploration and forensic archaeology. His expeditions took him to Pompeii, the Titanic and the the World Trade Center. He served as scientific consultant on James’ Cameron’s Titanic and Avatar. I’ll be reviewing his Ghosts of Vesuvius on my blog soon, am on the last few chapters.)
2/13/2011 7:43 PM
“Actually, it’s not just the snipping off of Pluto. Jupiter is not a planet – it’s a brown dwarf. Meaning, a star – a solar system orbiting within our solar system, with it’s own host of planets.
Saturn presents a similar situation: – albeit not having quite enough mass to be called a small brown dwarf. But Saturn’s moon Titan with its atmosphere and rivers and lakes of methane-ethane, qualifies as a planet orbiting a dark star.
There are more planets in our solar system, not fewer. Mars gets all the attention; but if our civilization survives long enough to build some of the faster, more efficient rockets that have been on the drawing boards for a couple of decades, we should skip the high-radiation, nearly airless super-oxidizing environment of Mars and aim for the one place where it is possible to have a 21st century Oregon Trail: Titan.
Heated suits are needed, but no cumbersome pressure suits. The geology is mostly water ice and the volcanoes are erupting water as lava (from deep hydrothermal zones that may contain life (meaning that the volcanoes may also be erupting instantly freezing [fossilizing] life.
One could even run an internal combustion engine. It’s a bit opposite of an Earth engine, however: You need to take oxygen from the ice and fill the gas tank with oxygen – to burn the methane in the atmosphere (instead of oxygen, as on Earth).
Some of the northern lakes of what is essentially liquid natural gas are as large as Lake Superior. There is more methane in the atmosphere than should be able to survive without constant cryo-volcanic activity replenishing what is lost. This hints at (but does not yet confirm) a bacterial ecology producing the methane. And then there is mysterious little Enceladus, nearer to Saturn – another great little planet awaiting exploration. It’s erupting water and organic compounds.
The rain on Titan, under low gravity, forms large drops (perhaps about the size of grapes), falling very slowly toward the ground. There are actually river valleys up there. Everything humans need to live can be found on Titan.”
The more I learn about the universe and our own solar system the more firm my belief is that it is some inexplicable miracle that we made it on this orb at all. The physics on the other side of our atmosphere are stretching and pushing, bursting and compressing just about anything within gravitational range. And here we sit, spinning round and round, content to do what we do amidst all the chaos going on above our heads.
My brain hurts.
Amazing, isn’t it. One of the most fascinating experiences I’ve had was seeing the photo of Earth from outer space and my first thoughts were about real estate and wars. How can we go to war to invade countries to put our names on them; how can realtors sell pieces of earth, how can we even own a piece of that planet. No one owns planet Earth. That same photo makes me think of our brain.
It’s magical to a non-scientific person like me to wonder how this thing called brain helps me type these words out.
As you said, it’s a brainache so I go to the mall instead. I think Dr. Pellegrino has two brains in his head.