Field Trip: Project Star Gaze, College of San Mateo

 

When: Fridays 1-2pm, during the school year (September to May)

Where: College of San Mateo Planetarium (1700 W. Hillsdale Boulevard, San Mateo, CA 94402)
Who: Recommended for K-5, but adaptable for older.  Younger children may accompany, but may find the planetarium show loud or dark at times.
Cost: Free

As part of its educational outreach, the College of San Mateo graciously hosts "Project Star Gaze" so educational groups, including homeschoolers, can visit the planetarium for free. The planetarium capacity is 95, which handily accommodates most homeschool groups; furthermore there is an option to combine with other groups so scheduling is usually easy. On the day we went, we were the only group so we had the whole planetarium to ourselves!

At the beginning, Professor Janatpour held a lively Q&A session about our solar system - asking us to name its planets, our nearest star (the sun), its distance from us (92 million miles, about 8 minutes for light to travel), the speed of light and then how long it takes for light to travel from the next nearest star Proxima Centauri (4 years!) to earth.  The last question allowed us to ponder how vast space is, and led to the next question: How do we know the stars are there, when they are so far away?

The professor then distributed diffraction glasses, glasses with lenses that had 50,000 lines in both horizontal and vertical axes. The effect of these is to spread out light into its components. Taking jars with different elements (hydrogen, helium, neon and mercury) heated within, he asked us to view them in turn with our glasses on. This section brought 'oohs' and 'aahs' from everyone as we saw the different emission spectra, which is unique to each element.

This also answered the question of detection: by instruments which detect these spectra, we learn about stars' presence and their chemical composition. The professor emphasized that this is where our math (geometry) and physics (optics) learning comes in.

Finally, we watched the show Incoming! which was produced at the California Academy of Sciences. This was dazzlingly animated and showed the impact of past meteorites on earth, as well as other planetary objects.

The film discusses some scientists' views that meteorites may have brought the chemical elements used in formation of life on earth, a viewpoint which families may want to discuss. There are also opportunities to point out God's glory, e.g. even though the screen shows how densely distributed near-earth-objects are, and discusses the catastrophic impact even a small one may have, we remember that God is sovereign.

We recommend this field trip - the staff are enthusiastic and can answer questions to the depth of student interest without seeming intimidating. To book a field trip, you can email them starting from mid-August for the coming school year.

Notes:

• Parking is free starting from 1pm Fridays in Galileo Lot 6, which is just adjacent to the Planetarium.
• The diffraction/spectroscope glasses may be taken home (yay!), however, remember not to look at the sun with them.  You may compare the spectra from other light sources such as LEDs, fluorescent lights or flame. Other ideas available by searching "spectroscopy for kids", e.g. NASA, Home Science Tools, University of Iowa.
• If your students enjoyed the Planetarium, check out the CSM Astronomy Department's Calendar - they have talks on first Fridays, and planetarium shows on second Fridays.