Blog Archives

planetary Motion (Week 9)

3/20/2023

manna moment

Hold your thumb arm’s length away. Close one eye and use your thumb to cover, or block a larger object from your view. This might be a plant across the room or a clock on the wall. How could your relatively smaller thumb be the same size as the larger object further away? The closer your thumb is to your eye, the larger it appears compared to the actually larger object at a distance. This is why the Lord calls us to walk by faith and not by sight. Our default is to look at our circumstances from our own limited perspective. Things–even small things–close to us will seem much bigger than they are in respect to our Almighty God. I praise the Lord for His thoughts are not ours and His ways are not ours. Moreover, Praise God He invites us to share in His perspective. The Apostle Paul encourages us to set our minds on things above and not on things on Earth. Let us choose higher thoughts, His thoughts. (Colossians 3:2)

Planet presentations

Today began the planet presentations for the students. Each student chose a planet to research and find out specific facts about it. This rubric lists all the information that I wanted them to find on their specific planet. They were to prepare a poster board presentation for us. The facts that they gathered, I am hoping to use in a Planet Trivia Game next week. This will encourage great listening skills and know that their work is valuable. There does need to be some tweaking of the information to be sure the measurements are in the same units.

Planetary Motion

On March 20, 2023 at 4:24pm Central time, the vernal equinox took place. In our notes, we learned about solstices and equinoxes. The Vernal Equinox is the point where we are exactly halfway between the shortest day in winter (winter solstice) and the longest day in summer (summer solstice). At this specific time there was an equal amount of sunlight for daytime and shadow for nighttime on the Earth.
In these notes we also covered the difference between solar and lunar eclipses and demonstrated these in class with a flashlight, inflatable globe and a styrofoam ball connected to a bamboo skewer.

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Comets, Asteroids, Meteoroids, Meteors, Meteorites (week 8)

3/6/2023

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manna moment

Jeremiah 10:2 “Thus says the Lord: “Do not learn the way of the Gentiles; Do not be dismayed at the signs of heaven, For the Gentiles are dismayed at them."

Historically, comets have been seen as omens of evil when in fact they came with the Creation package on Day 4 when the Lord made the Sun, Moon and Stars. Jeremiah warns us that we are not to fall into superstition and become dismayed. We are to trust the Lord who made all things. Even today, we hear all sorts of information about space especially now with the new James Webb Space Telescope. We assume that those that are in direct contact with the data collected from this telescope think like us so then what they see and how they are interpreting the data should be true. This is not always the case. Worldview of astronomers shapes their interpretation always. Be wary and always seek out what is truth from God in His word. Jesus promises in John 8:31-32 that if we abide in His word, we will know the truth and the truth will set us free. We are free as believers to not succumb to every idea that our culture throws at us. Thank You Jesus for Your truth.

Lets take some notes

Through this lesson we learned about:

Comets, their parts and what they are made of, how big they can be and how they travel

Asteroids are very large rocky bodies that orbit the Sun, they do not have enough gravity for an atmosphere and are lifeless

Meteoroids are smaller pieces of rock that orbit the Sun and when these smaller pieces enter our atmosphere, they become meteors. If the meteor survives the burn of our atmosphere and hits the surface of the earth, it is then called a meteorite.

Comets, Asteroids, Meteors oh my!

Taking the information from the note taking sheet, we applied what we learned to this foldable where the students can keep all the different kinds of space rocks separate.

Making a comet

Comet models are a relatively easy thing to make and each part allows us to review what a comet is, its parts and what it is made of.

Materials:

Styrofoam ball (can be any size you would like your comet to be)
Foil, enough to cover your styrofoam ball
Silver and gold ribbon
Thumb Tack
Tape

Instructions:
1. Grab your styrofoam ball which represents the nucleus of the comet. The nucleus is made of frozen ice mixed with rock and dust.
2. Cover your nucleus with foil representing the coma. The coma is a small atmosphere around the nucleus that is reflective
When you are covering the nucleus with foil, you might have excess and can form the excess into a tiny tail that sticks out of the ball. From here you can take your silver and gold ribbon and tie them to the ball.
3. If you covered the nucleus with foil and it is flush with the ball, then grab a thumb tack and attach the ribbon to the ball using the thumb tack. You will need to secure the thumb tack with clear tape otherwise the tails will fall off easily.
4. Finally, place the comet on a bamboo stick and the students can zoom around with them.