Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Moon & Venus to put on post-Christmas sky show




I used to teach Science, and I enjoyed teaching it. I have a great deal of enthusiasm for the natural world, and a tremendous admiration for scientists, and I like to think that I conveyed this to the students. Since science is now taught in French, and since I know the limits of my competence, I now have reassigned teaching in other classes while someone else comes to teach science to grade 6. Yet science topics come up form time to time, and the students and I will explore other subjects that have caught their interest, even if they venture out of my prescribed subjects and into more scientific terrain.

It is funny that often the tangential conversations we have in class lead us to notice current events in a different way. Lately we discussed the lunar calendar, as well as the orbit of the Earth and the other planets, and we discussed which planets were sometimes visible in the night sky. The students were very enthusiastic about the possibility of seeing another planet in the sky.

Lo and behold, I found this article while reading the new this morning.

Moon & Venus to put on post-Christmas sky show

Tonight, Venus will be visible to the naked eye (kids, this means without a telescope. Ahem. Really, get your minds out of the gutter.)

Follow the link above to see an article on this, and to lean where and when to look at the night sky to see this cosmic event. I hope you can venture out tonight after dark and see it for yourself!

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