The universe through a child's eyes

There is something about parenting that gives us a sense of history and a deeply rooted desire to send to the next generation the great things we discovered about life. And part of that is the desire to instill in our children a love of science, learning and especially the love of nature.

Your fascination with the universe and how to explore it as we so often in the field of astronomy can be very academic and dry as it might be if you took a course in astronomy. But when you get there in the night, your equipment is right and the night sky comes alive with activity, there is no experience of others like him of the majesty and pure excitement. And that's the kind of experience we want our children come to love as much as we do.

There, the AM actually not a big leap to learning the game for the kids when it comes to learning about the world, natural science and astronomy. Exploration is a natural part of being a child and grow into a fascinating world and the universe. So if we can find ways to take the natural desire to explore and breathe life long passion for astronomy, we gave our children a truly great gift.

So with a few simple family activities, we can instill a love of astronomy in our offspring. Here are some ideas.

* Make stargazing part of family life. You already love to go outside as often as possible to enjoy the stars. Then Don, AOT Whether your passion private. Get everyone in the law. Children will love and look forward to these nights as well go to the circus.

* Make each new experience in the culture in astronomy a threshold cost. Thus, the first experiments could be that you experienced as a kid, just laying on your back in the country with the general panorama of stars trying to take all in. Go ahead and challenge them to count the stars. There, a fun exercise OSA and they will save money to use it as a joke on their children when they do this same thing in a few decades.

* Take the road to learning, the introduction of binoculars so they can focus on specific areas of the night sky.

* Now they are hooked and want to know why some stars are brighter than others. They have no idea that they attend school and astronomy gift, AOT even knowing it. You can tell them about the constellations as you point out how to find them by typing off the North Star. By being able to find things in this mass of stars and knowing that there is so much more they can choose, they are ripe for learning from maps of the sky and how galaxies work.

* Think of their enthusiasm as they notice changes in the night sky. Phases of the moon and the effect of earth rotation on the position of the planets. Help them find their favorite celestial body every night. Before long, they will learn to trace the movement of stars, like the first astronomers did.

* Now you've caught in the excitement of finding new things to prove to your team of enthusiastic budding astronomers. When you reveal that you go on a safari to see an eclipse or a meteor shower once in a life appearance of a comet, this gift will be as big as anything you might spring on them for Christmas.

The wonders of the night sky will captivate your children how you had for years. And you have made them the biggest favor you could ever making them fans throughout the universe.

Posted in: