The Birth of “space girl” Amy
Ah, space. When I was 10 years old I was obsessed with it. One day a PBS documentary about NASA was playing on the television, which was where I was introduced to (among other cool things) a young astronauts' camp in Florida. Even though I was living on the other side of the country in Washington State at the time, I wanted to go. Everything about being an astronaut looked so cool. The most intriguing element for me was the anti-gravity simulators that you could go into. Floating around feeling like you were flying through the air? Sign me up. I was also intrigued by the principle that the universe was always expanding. Would it or could it ever stop? How is it expanding if energy is neither created nor destroyed? There was such infinite potential for discovery.
My mom was supportive of this dream to go to space, so she took me to the local library where I loaded up every book about astronomy that I could possibly find. I read about the solar system. I learned very basic physics. I roped all of my siblings into doing experiments where we dropped various objects from our treehouse to see what would fall the fastest. I tried to imagine how humans might live on other planets. However, then I learned the terrible news about the sun. In approximately 5 billion years the sun will expand and become a red giant before ultimately burning out. I was horrified. I remember the day so well because I immediately packed away the dream of going to space, sent back all of my library books, and started reading the ‘Little House on the Prarie’ series and dreaming about how I would become a farmer instead. All because of the sun. As an adult, I know that that is a silly fear but whenever I hear anything about space, I still feel little remnants of the horror that 10-year-old me felt when she was so certain that 5 billion years could occur during her lifetime.
This week at PAGE we engaged in second session training with none other than a really cool astronomy woman named Mimi who has worked for NASA in observatories around the United States and the world. Can you guess what the theme of the next session is? Space! We will be learning about our planet, the solar system, the night sky, and the science behind these studies such as Physics and Chemistry. I didn’t realize how much I had missed space and science until we really got into the training week. Mimi is extremely passionate about the subject matter and encouraged us all the ask as many questions (no matter how silly) throughout the week as we could think of.
Over the training, we did many of the same experiments that the students would be participating in next week as well. On the first day, we learned about spectroscopy and the different wavelengths of light. We explored how those mattered to how we view and think about the universe and did an experiment where we got to look through different colored lenses. The next day we headed outdoors to use a device called a ‘sun spotter’ to safely observe a magnified shadow of the sun. What was really exciting about this was that it magnified the sun enough so that we could see sunspots. One of the activities that we will be doing with the students is having them take observations of the sun every day and record them in their lab journals. Something interesting that we observed that second day is that you have to be quick to take the sun observation because you can see how the earth moves, as the sun quickly maps itself out of view. On day three we got to use telescopes in preparation for an overnight camping trip we will be taken to observe the night sky. Each of the PAGE students will receive their very own ‘Galileo-Scopes’ which are beginner telescopes that model the one that Galileo invented many centuries before. With these telescopes, students will be able to observe the moon and see Saturn’s rings, and if they stay up until the wee hours, might catch a glimpse of Venus as well. Over the next couple of days, we followed our own interests in astronomy and planned some of the individual projects that the interns are responsible for leading in the afternoons. We also spoke a lot on the topic of black holes. The independent projects that we will be leading include: studying famous women pioneers in the space field, making personal golden compass projects on CD, researching enthno-astronomy, and putting on a play.
Mimi’s excitement, passion, and willingness to engage everyone in the study of astronomy were representative of everything that a good teacher should be. She made us all wholeheartedly believe that we are scientists. This is so important for every subject, but especially science. Sometimes I think I might be pursuing a different major if I had more empowering role models who encouraged me to pursue Chemistry and Math (two subjects that I actually very much enjoy), even though it was hard. Mimi talked to us too about her early days in college, where she planned to major in Art as it was something that she was good at, but had an advisor who noticed her love of space and encouraged her to pursue that major even though she noted how she struggled during her first year. Good teachers should never make it so that a student thinks that they have to only go after “what they are good at”. For example, I am good at writing and teaching because that’s what I practiced. Everyone has to practice to be better at something. A student does not become a master in one day and I hope that is an energy that I can bring to the PAGE learners and my future English students as well one day.
Over the weekend, I also had some exciting adventures! On Saturday I section hiked 13.5 miles of the Appalachian trail from a place called Sam’s gap, to Big Bald Mountain. Sunday, some of the interns traveled to Spring Creek, the rural mountain community where PAGE was first launched (then called the Spring Creek Literacy Project), and volunteered at a school reunion.
(Sorry there are not a lot of pictures from this week, more to come next week!)
