Definition of Physical Astronomy
Physical Astronomy is a new way of teaching astronomy that emphasizes the human body and its relationship to other moving objects in space. The goal is to bring geometric and scientific awareness to a child’s everyday sky observations. Kids learn easily visible sky motions at a “kid’s eye level.”
The Sun does not move… we move
One of the first steps in Physical Astronomy is to forget you ever heard the words “Sunset” or “Sunrise.” These words (while rife with history, beautiful in their own right, and descriptive) are scientifically wrong. These words obscure the truth of our trip around the Sun. We are on the Earth, the Earth is spinning; the Sun appears to be moving, but it is us moving.
From the outset Physical Astronomy challenges you to reconsider long-held perceptions. It challenges you to trade them for curiosity, scientific thinking, and observation.
Foundations of Physical Astronomy
Physical Astronomy means learning basic astronomy concepts with a Kinesthetic approach: your body is on the Earth but traveling in space. While we are actually traveling in many directions at the same time the daily perception of our direction is of traveling “under the sun.” Through imagination and knowledge, you can see your place within the motions of the Earth, Sun, Moon, stars, and galaxies.
Science and the Scientific Method are the foundations of Physical Astronomy. Teaching methods, tools, and models scale Astronomy concepts to human size. Imagination transports us beyond our current understanding.
The Future of Physical Astronomy
I would like each child to get a little bit closer to understanding advanced but fundamental physical concepts like light speed, orbits, phases, star distance. The goal is to offer very early involvement with physics and motion. This early exposure to the idea of the speed of light can give a future adult a natural base of understanding.
For most of human existence we earthlings did not know that we lived on the surface of a giant sphere. My goal with this new way of teaching astronomy is to bring curious young minds fun, high-quality, experiential, developmentally tuned lessons for getting involved in the process of scientific discovery.
My intent is to build a strong and scientifically accurate conceptual foundation in a child’s mind. This will bring a passionate and articulate dedication to astronomy specifically, and science in general.
We will cover these topics and more: the earth, moon, sun, planets and stars, black holes, asteroids, astronomy versus astrology, visible light versus invisible energy, other celestial bodies like comets, neutron stars, pulsars, quasars, radio waves in multiple frequency bands, telescopes, dark matter and dark energy, and ultimately space (everything outside the earth atmosphere), and the history of astronomy.
The next Halley, Herschel, Hubble, Einstein, or Hawking.
I have always been captivated by the sky. And I’ve come to realize that even though everyone has some knowledge of what’s “up there” (no matter how much absolute knowledge someone possesses) they always want to know more. The study of the sky is endless! There are so many ways to bring that sense of depth to more and more kids. Let’s continue so that we nurture the development of our next Halley, Herschel, Hubble, Einstein, or Hawking.
I have a big goal with my Physical Astronomy education programs: to encourage people to see the world from a new perspective and to transform them.
We do this by offering repeatable experiences – personal science experiences – that shape the way we perceive our particular place in the universe.