What a fun night last night at the Will Hampton Branch Library! Their ‘Reading the Stars’ event was filled with space themed cookies, hot cocoa, a reading of “Cassandra and the Night Sky” with my mom- the illustrator- joining the event, astronomers from the Austin Astronomical Society, and the Austin Nature and Science Center‘s Starlab.…
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This past June, I was accepted to the Astronomy in Chile Educator Ambassador Program and had the amazing opportunity to travel to Chile to learn about the astronomical research being done there. Our group of 9 consisted of astronomy writers, amateur astronomers, astrophotographers, science teachers, astronomy educators and planetarium professionals from across the United States…
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What do palentologists collect? Fossils What do archeologists collect? Artifacts What do geologists collect? Rocks and Minerals What do astronomers collect? Light! What instrument do astronomers use to collect that light? Telescopes. This past June, I was accepted to the Astronomy in Chile Educator Ambassador Program and had the amazing opportunity to travel to Chile to…
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Today was a day when memories were made. Memories that will last a lifetime. From getting into the car and stopping to write on the windows to christen it “the eclipse bus” to figuring out where we will go for clear skies after learning about the best weather web sites from a meteorologist at…
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Thanks to Ken Miller, Ken Miller of the GOTO planetarium company, and formerly of Bishop Museum in Hawaii, here is a better way to project the sun and view it indirectly! Cover a hand mirror with paper. Cut out a dime-sized hole in the paper. Stick the mirror into a lump of clay or bucket of…
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It was exciting to be on Fox 7 today to talk about the upcoming eclipse. I love using models to teach astronomical concepts, so I showed a relative size of the earth and the moon. In teaching astronomy, modeling really helps us better understand the phenomena going on above our heads and under our feet.…
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Lucia Brimer and I joined forces and taught a session all about the solar eclipse to teachers in Austin ISD today. Lucia, friend and astronomy educator for the Texas Museum of Science and Technology, planned a wonderful presentation on how eclipses work, what activities they can do with their kids on the first day of…
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This was another great day! The Buda Public Library hosts summer science classes for kids and I had the opportunity to teach one. I read “Cassandra and the Night Sky”, showed everyone what constellations we can see during the summer time, we made constellation viewers of one of the main characters from the book…
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This was a great day! The Round Rock Public Library put on a wonderful day to prepare their community for the upcoming eclipse. I had the opportunity to read “Cassandra and the Night Sky”, show everyone what constellations we can see during the summer time and make constellation viewers of one of the main characters…
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The Great American Total Solar Eclipse is coming up! August 21st, the moon will block the sun for a little while and we will see a total eclipse from Oregon to South Carolina. If you live here in Austin you will see the moon take a substantial ‘bite’ out of the sun. Check out this…
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