Outreach visit to a Primary School in Leighton Buzzard

In January the Society received an e-mail from a teacher at Rushmere Park Academy in Leighton Buzzard

asking us to come and speak to a group of youngsters about Space. The children had become quite

excited about some of the things they were learning and wanted to ask a real astronomer some

questions. And as is usual with children, their innocent little questions do not always have simple

answers (like what colour actually is the Sun?). Nevertheless Audrey and I plucked up our courage, and a

few bits and pieces, to face about thirty excited 4- to 5-year-olds.

We first constructed a Fruit Solar System – a melon for Jupiter, grapefruit for Saturn, tomato for Earth

and so on – and measured out proportional distances (using sheets of toilet paper as our ruler!) to give

some idea of scale. And we had photos and videos of the planets to show them what they actually

looked like.

Next we turned our attention to the Moon and asked the children how they thought it had become so

cratered – and what were those white rays spreading out from particular craters such as Tycho and

Copernicus. Once we explained that these arose from objects colliding into the Moon during its history,

it was time to create a crater of our own. So we filled a roasting tray with flour and dusted this over with

chocolate powder. Then we dropped a stone into the tray! And sure enough a beautiful crater (with

rays) was created. Of course we had to do a repeat performance!

The biggest bonus for the children (and us) was that at the last moment before leaving home we

decided to take with us an inexpensive refractor on a camera tripod – we figured at least they could look

at it or perhaps even through it, maybe to see the other side of the playground close up. But we had an

amazing piece of luck: the sky cleared, the sun came out ….. and so did the Moon, about 30° degrees up

in the south-east! Each and every child (and teachers, and assistants!) saw the Moon through the

telescope!

Let’s hope that this has fired up something inside these little astronomers’ minds that leads them on to

an appreciation and interest in science.

Click the play button to watch the video.

Sandy & Audrey Giles