It’s Not That Funny.....Seriously

This week, in one of my classes, I mentioned that before it turned grey and fell out, I had a lot of red hair. 

Really.

Stop snickering.

I know my students have a hard time conceptualizing that there was a world full of people before they existed, but it’s true. I am a witness to that. There was life before you were born. 

Proving what a good sport I am, I provide proof that life existed long before you graced this Earth. 

This is a picture of me in 1977. I was a freshman in college. This was before I cut my hair. This was before I grew the mustache that decorated my face for more than half of my adult life. This is basically what I looked like in high school. (I tried to find a picture of me in eighth grade but could not)

Really.

Stop snickering.

See, there was life before you. Your teachers, parents and grandparents were all eighth graders at one time. We all survived, just as you will.

I am a witness to time before you arrived just as you will be witnesses to time after I’ve departed. Time just keeps rolling along, generation after generation after generation.

Really.

Stop snickering.

It’s not that funny.

Pluto Needs Your Help!

Well, to be accurate the International Astronomical Union (IAU) needs your help, but it’s about Pluto.

This is a great way people can get involved in planetary science without an advance degree, powerful telescope or even leaving the comfort of their homes: Help the IAU put together a list of potential names for features on Pluto and its largest moon, Charon.

Why now?

This summer, the New Horizons spacecraft is going to fly past these two mysterious celestial objects. The IAU wants a ready list of names for the craters, plains, mountains, valleys, rifts and whatever else we see on Pluto and Charon.

The Hubble Space Telescope – the magical window to the universe that has brought us breath-taking images of galaxies, nebula, star clusters and more – is unable to provide a detailed image of distant Pluto. Pluto is too small, too far away and too dimly lit.

That’s where New Horizons comes into play. Launched in 2006, New Horizons has been sailing through space towards a rendezvous with Pluto since before Pluto was demoted to dwarf planet status.

After a gravity assist by Jupiter, the spacecraft is zipping along at a million miles per day. Pluto is a long way from Earth so, even at that rate, it’s taken over ten years to get there.

The spacecraft will pass within 8,000 miles of Pluto and should provide an array of detailed high-resolution images.

The IAU would like your help in developing a list of potential names for the features of Pluto and Charon that are about to be discovered. They have a list of nominees that people can vote on broken down by categories and sub-categories:

History of Exploration
Historic Explorers: those who pioneered the exploration of the land, sea and sky.

Space Missions and Spacecraft: the launch vehicles that have carried our people and our machines into space, and the spacecraft we have used to explore the cosmos.

Scientists and Engineers: Those who have contributed to our understanding of Pluto and the solar system.

Literature of Exploration
Fictional Explorers and Travelers: The characters who have embarked on journeys in the stories we tell.

Fictional Origins and Destinations: The places they have sought and the homes they have left.

Fictional Vessels: The sailing ships, starships, and everything in between that have carried them on their journeys.

Exploration Authors and Artists: Those who have envisioned our explorations of the land, sea and space.

Mythology of the Underworld
Underworlds and Underworld Locales: The deep, dark places of mystery and death, as imagined in all the cultures of the world.

Travelers to the Underworld: The intrepid travelers who have ventured into the underworld and (sometimes) returned.

Underworld Beings: The deities, demons and denizens of the underworld in our stories.

If you’re not fully satisfied with the list of nominations, you can submit your own ideas.

I have already done so – under the category Literature of Exploration: Fictional Explorers and Travelers. I nominated Tom Swift – the central character in a long series of books about science and adventure. I think I read all of them when I was a kid and they helped inspire a life-long love of science.

We will submit some worthy suggestions as a school later this week. Stay tuned in your science class.

Put your thinking cap on and come up with your own ideas – get involved. 

Who knows, maybe someday we’ll be talking about the Tom Swift mountain range on Pluto.

Whyyyyyy Do I Have To Take Maaaaaaath?

“I’m never going to use this in my life.”

“Nobody uses Algebra in the real world.”

“Why do I have to take math?”

Math teachers hear this kind of stuff a lot. To be completely accurate, that last sentence is often delivered with a serious whiny tone and sounds more like:

“Whyyyyyy do I have to take maaaaaaath?” 

I’m not going to try to prove that every person on Earth uses the Pythagorean theorem on a regular basis, solves systems of equations at breakfast, or uses scientific notation to balance their checkbook. 

Some people do. Some people don’t.

I can tell you that you need to know this stuff to pass the PARCC test later this month.

You need to know this stuff to graduate from high school. 

Depending on what course of study you choose in college, you might need to use these mathematical concepts, and others, to earn your degree.

I don’t know what you’re going to need beyond that. 

That’s kind of the thing. No one knows what you’re going to need. Your teachers have to give you a solid grounding in lots of stuff to prepare you to do what you want to do. We are giving you a well-rounded education so you have to option to do anything you want to do after high school and/or college.

If you become a poet, you might not ever have to deal with exponents again. If you become an engineer, you’ll probably never have to remember the difference between a epitaph and an epigram.

No one know what life will bring, so you need to know a little about everything so you’re ready for whatever direction your life takes.

And who’s to say you won’t end up as an engineer who likes to write a little poetry on the side.

Pride

As a first year teacher at McAuliffe, I am experiencing a lot of new things this school year. The most recent was the space project and the Christa McAuliffe Remembrance Event. 

I am so impressed with all the hard work that went into the projects, the care and effort each of you took constructing your displays and how poised you were in front of friends, family and judges. it’s not easy to speak in public, but you all did well, and I think you were a little surprised at how much you had learned about your project topics when judges and other questioned you.

I am so proud of each of you. 

You have worked hard, you’ve learned from experts in the fields you all studied, and you all learned so much. 

I bet there’s not another eighth grade class in the country that can speak about ion thrusters, Venus volcanology, the workings of the SOPHIA telescope and a host of other project subjects to the depth that you can. 

You learned a lot and you taught much of it to yourselves and each other. That’s one of the goals of this project, to expose you to the process of researching a subject of which you had little or no prior knowledge. You figured it out.

The experts were a key component in this process. I don’t know how many middle schoolers have gotten a chance to question astronauts, rocket scientists, or NASA geologists, but I bet the number is pretty small. Interviewing the experts is a special experience and you are a special group.

I hope you are all proud of your work - you should be.

The process wasn’t easy and wasn’t perfect. But, what is? This is what the “real world” is like - it’s messy and complicated and frustrating. You all pushed forward despite difficulties and that’s called perseverance. That’s one of the things you need to remember from this experience - that you kept moving forward, overcoming obstacles, rethinking and revising as you progressed. 

I think I can speak for the entire eighth grade team when I say, we are all immensely proud of you. 

Pluto-The-Planet Got Fired

In 2006, members of the International Astronomical Union voted on and approved a new definition of what constitutes a planet. The result was, Pluto got fired from being a planet. It’s now considered a dwarf-planet.

Lets get one thing on the recored right now, just in case there’s any misunderstanding. Pluto did not change. It’s still out there, orbiting the sun, cold as hell (Now, that’s an odd expression, isn't it?). All the IAU did was change the classification, not the planet/dwarf planet itself.

I’m just guessing, but I don’t think the IAU members expected such a wail of lament over the change in status for Pluto. I think it took them by surprise. I don’t think they appreciated or understood why so many people have such strong, emotional bonds to a rocky, icy world that’s so far away from Earth, that no one has ever even taken a good picture of it.

The picture thing is gong to change. We’re going to get fabulous pictures this summer when the New Horizons space probe zooms past Pluto. New Horizons was launched in January 2006 - just a few months before Pluto’s reclassification. This July, the spacecraft will pass about 6,300 miles from the dwarf planet and should provide outstanding images of both Pluto and it’s largest moon (of five), Charon.

But, back to the fuss, I think I’ve figured out why people reacted the way they did.

It’s this guy’s fault. 

Pluto the Disney dog. 

Who doesn’t love Pluto the dog? Don’t we all know someone who’s a lot like Pluto? Some playful, cheerful, goofy (No wait, wrong word that’s a totally different dog) happy-go-lucky aunt or uncle?

Let me ask you a question: What if Pluto looked like this? 

The evil queen from Snow White.

What if her name had been Evil Queen Pluto? 

Would people have been so unhappy about Pluto’s reclassification?

I doubt it. 

In that scenario, I’m thinking people would have supported kicking Pluto right out of the whole solar system.

And that’s what the IAU folks didn’t anticipate - say the word Pluto to most people and they think of the lovable cartoon dog. They like and love Pluto-the-dog and they associate those feelings when thinking about poor Pluto-the-planet getting fired. 

I don't necessarily think the IAU was wrong for reclassifying Pluto, I just think the astronomers should have watched more cartoons.