Smith Lighthouse Crew -"Train up a child in the way he should go..." Proverbs 22:6

Adler Planetarium Field Trip

3:12 PM, Nov. 2, 2008 .. 0 comments .. Link

We ventured into Chicago this past Tuesday for a free admission day at the
Adler Planetarium.

Noah's Science lessons, Behold and See 3 by Catholic Heritage Curricula

have been on our solar system, and since we've not been to the Planetarium yet...

We saw two shows: "One Sky, One World" with Big Bird and friends (good for ages 2-5 for sure, but a bit slow for our two oldest. Isaiah liked it though!) and
"Fly Me to the Moon" which was a 3-D (thus the glasses) animated story about the first mission where an American walked on the moon - Apollo 11. Three little flies (yep, insects) go along for the ride. They all liked that show too.

Here's Isaiah trying to "see what Galileo saw of Jupiter on four different nights."

Then, there was a free activity to learn about how craters are made by dropping rocks of various sizes into a huge pan of flour. (Glad it was their mess! hehe)

Next we discover that Miranda isn't just an adorable, sweet little Smith girl
- she's a moon of Uranus too!

There were so many activities to try, the kids really enjoyed themselves. They even said "Thanks Mom, this was a great day!" as we were leaving!!

This activity demonstrated a way of identifying a black hole. Did you know you can't just "see" a black hole, and point to it and say, "There's a black hole right there?" Black holes are sometimes identified by the stars rotations. When there are stars clustered together, and the ones in the center have a faster rotation than the ones on the outer edges, that is one indicator that a black hole may be present. Miranda is turning a crank that brings up some ping pong size balls that are released at the top, then spin there way down the black funnel. When the balls get closer to the middle of the funnel, they spin around faster and faster, just like the stars in the sky do when there is a black hole present. (Yep, Mom learned lots too!)

The last activity of the day was in the Shoot for the Moon exhibit where Noah & Miranda tried out the Lunar Jump activity. They were actually lying on their backs and pushing off with their feet. This is what I saw on a projector screen
(thus the poorer pic quality too.) They also got to see themselves on a screen
like this while they were "jumping."

I guess our day trip into our universe was quite exhausting, as Isaiah promptly fell asleep in the car, but only after setting up his own system for shading his eyes from the afternoon Sun!

(Okay, I'll admit - we were ALL tired. But geesh - we got up at 6:30 am, and left the house by 7:30am for the two hour trek into Chicago. Normally, Isaiah is the ONLY one who WAKES UP at 7:30am, the rest of us roll out of bed after 8:00am. Okay, okay - 8:30am for ME! Natural sleep patterns are very important - just read Dr. Sears' Sleep Book.

ENJOY!

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Smith Lighthouse Crew -"Train up a child in the way he should go..." Proverbs 22:6

Adler Planetarium Field Trip

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