Once in their lifetime: the Transit of Venus

Last Wednesday was a pretty significant day - the Transit of Venus which occurs once every 105 years. Well twice actually, because it happens in "pairs" and the last date was 2004 when these kids were 2 or 3 years old. As it's one of the rarest cosmological events - Venus passing between the Earth and the Sun - we made quite a big deal of it in the days leading up to Wednesday 6th June.


Teachers ran workshops on various aspects of astronomy, including tutorials on the computer programs Celestia and Stellarium (they're freeware by the way, so Google them for home use). We also looked at the way the stars - the heavens - were important in ancient times both as a source of mythology and as scientific and mathematical arenas.
A lot of students brought all sorts of prior knowledge to these discussions, and on the day kids were in and out of the LC as parents picked them up to go view the Transit through solar scopes, or on the internet.
At school students constructed amateur solar scopes - we were constrained of course by the dangers of looking directly at the sun, so had to use indirect methods. Heide brought a wonderful instrument from home and many kids had success. 
After several days of cloud and rain we'd asked students to do anti-rain dances at home, and some even talked of Aztec style human sacrifices to satisfy the Sun God, but in the end that wasn't necessary.
Amazingly the sun shone all morning!
Kids were inside making, outside viewing, running back and forth to test, change their design, discuss and debate the whole event.
Fantastic hands-on learning, Inquiry in action. At one stage the oval was covered with amateur astronomers. Robyn came out to have a look too.

Later back in the classroom we had a debrief: Steve was running a live feed via his iPhone - incredibly our Government internet provider had blocked the University of Queensland as an "unsafe site"! So we couldn't hook up the school computers to view the Transit. Nevertheless Steve routed it through the Interactive White Board and we had quite a discussion about science and technology. We also showed students the Design & Technology VELS document and explained how they were meeting or exceeding the expected curriculum standards.
An important thing about working scientifically is learning about "failure" - you hypothesise, design, implement, evaluate and then review your hypothesis. Most of human science has been shown over time to be "false", and this is a difficult concept for young students to grasp. This was an important part of our discussions on the day.