Science for Kids - Globe at Night

This month, from March 8-21, your children can participate in helping a group of scientists collect data on the affects of lights, and our ability to see the night sky. Megan and I started it tonight, and she really enjoyed it. I started by showing her an image from the website of the constellation Orion, and then they had a link where she could practice finding it. We drew it a couple of times, and she had no problem finding it in the sky. After we came in from spotting, I asked her to look at some of the Magnitude charts, and we talked about which one looked most like our sky in the backyard. It was very easy to do. The website details these steps:

Five Easy Star-Hunting Steps:

1) Find your latitude and longitude.
2) Find Orion by going outside an hour after sunset
(about 7-10pm local time)
3) Match your nighttime sky to one of our magnitude charts.
4) Report your observation.
5) Compare your observation to thousands around the world.

A family activity packet has any observation sheets or Magnitude charts that you may need. After a couple more observations, I'll ask Megan why she can see different stars at different times, and we can discuss the idea of light pollution. She also wants to learn more of the constellations, so tomorrow we will find Orion and one of the dippers. Anyway, it's an easy way to do "real" science. The data that is collected is used for real research, and as a participant, you can use everyone's observations as well.