Teaching ScienceIdeas and help for trainee Science teachers

Here’s a link to a cool website that lets you view how the planets in the Solar System move around the Sun : http://www.gunn.co.nz/astrotour/

You can run it automatically, and change the speed. or pause it and step through slowly. You can choose to view the whole thing with the sun at the centre, or to follow a particular planet around.

The controls at the side let you zoom in so you can see a few planets more closely. You can also make the planets bigger to make them easier to see on an IWB.

Another nice touch is that if you click and drag any planet, all the others will move in time with it.

This is a neat little tool to show how the planets orbit the Sun. You can see how some move faster than others and use the dates to calculate how long it would take some of the outer planets to complete one orbit. Visit the site now and have a play!

Microsoft have finally released the public beta of their World Wide Telescope project, and I just had to write about it. It’s a must for anyone who has to teach about space, or just anyone interested in astronomy.

Basically, its Microsoft’s version of Google Earth/ Google Sky and if you’ve used the Google version in the past then you’ll pick this up very easily.

The software provides a virtual planetarium and lets you study the night sky with great detail. Some of the images are astounding. You can also switch the view to study planets and moons such as Jupiter and Io.

When looking at the stars, right clicking will bring up a star identifier which tells you the name of the star (if known) and some information about it. You can even link direct to the relevant wikipedia page.

Maybe a quick activity would be to search for their star sign (I looked up Aries) and find the names of the stars in the constellation. Maybe even find out how far away they are from Earth.

You can also point the camera downwards and study the Earth instead just like Google Earth, although not in as high resolution. A nice feature is the Earth at Night view which shows just where all the populated areas are. Interesting to use for Geography perhaps?

This is highly recommended and would be an excellent piece of software for anyone who has to teach about the Earth and space. Download it from here.