A friend of mine is a teacher at a Montesorri school, teaching 6-9 year-olds. Someone donated a telescope to the class and she sent me a picture to identify it. I believe it's a Tasco Galaxsee. Unfortunately she doesn't know a lot about telescopes so she's looking for ideas on how to take advatage of this donation to teach the kids about astronomy/telescopes. Given the ages of the kids a night-time session probably won't work. Does anyone have any thoughts or helpful links?

I'll be away for a week so I'll check back then. I'll also let her know about the thread and see if she'll sign-up to the BABB, or at the very least to check on the thread.

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Well, I suppose that they can always view the Moon during daylight. Or project the Sun onto a piece of paper (be careful with that one).

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you can also use a telescope to watch bird or other stuff, although its a bit hard if the object is moving #-o

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Clouds, maybe? She can do a lesson on the water cycle and the different types of clouds. A telescope may not be the best for this, though. Just look up.

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Quaeso quousque humi defixa tua mens erit? Nonne aspicis, quae in templa veneris?

clouds suck under a scope- just whiteness
Birds yeah maybe
It'd be best to show a distant building or tree up close though...


I think the sun is a good object(even better if you have a filter(not one that goes over the lens!)- remember to remove the finder!) In about a week it will be last quarter so the moon will be up from 12am-12pm next Saturday. The moon is always worth a look.

I'd suggest venus but It's hard to find and dangerous if pointed to close to the sun.

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No suggestions for using a telescope, but...

About ten years ago I gave a talk about astronomy to my local small, rural primary school -- ages 5 - 12. Just basic things, but things that kept them active and thinking, such as asking them to work out how much of their hands held at arm's length would cover the full moon. Then moon phases and a bit about astronomical distances and the sizes of planets and stars. We went outside with a globe of the earth and formed a circle the equivalent circumference of the sun.

Also showed them a good collection of photos. They enjoyed seeing really good ones of the sun, Orion, our Southern Cross, Omega Centaurii, and of bright, colourful nebulae.

Then we arranged to meet one clear night about 1-1/2 hours after sunset to view satellites. No benefit of internet or Heavens-Above back them, it was just a matter of keep watching. We saw about ten in half an hour and two of them crossed at nearly right angles and got closer together than I've ever seen two at once, before or since. This was a big thrill for them because they thought they might see a crash and an explosion!

The thing that really got me about my talk was that I expected some pretty basic questions, perhaps even some about aliens, but there were none of those and the questions I did get were surprisingly intelligent for such young ages. So I imagine a teacher at a Montesorri school could get some extremely good questions.

[Fixed typo]

If you live in the brisbane area, my Astronomy club (SEQAS) runs school nights, the schools ask and we go out and show them some stuff (moon, planets, nebula etc...). It's really cool for the kids and the parents.

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I answered this question a while back here. Hope it helps you.

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Thanks everyone, especially Russ for the link, I'll let my friend know about the suggestions.

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Now while I might be amused by Cthulhians, I don't necessarily distrust them to carry out the functions of government. -- JayUtah

What's it like being a skeptic in the Middle East? Check out my blog.

Can she take them outside and is there a fair amount of space available? How about the Thousand Yard Walk? Not much to do with the telescope, but it's the best thing I've heard of for giving people an idea of the distances involved in astronomy.

I tried this on a 100 yard scale (football field) with 1st & 2nd graders. It didn't work so well. The kids were too easily distracted and hard to keep organized/focused.

It may work at the 6th grade and up levels but I have no experience with that level of kid.

All ages love star gazes, especially if you can get Saturn and Jupiter in the scope. Hope this helps.

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It's just one of those damn things of which there are many few. -- Dan Blocker