I thought it might be good to move away from the Solar System for now, and introduce Gwendolyn to galaxies. We used Bobby's poster to study the three main types of galaxies - elliptical, spiral, barred spiral - in addition to the irregulars. Gwendolyn was focused, and asked some excellent questions. She was particularly taken with the Hubble Deep Field, and easily picked out the galaxies.
Bobby and I started watching a documentary on the formation of black holes. In 2008, a powerful burst of gamma-rays signaling a cataclysmic event was detected by the orbiting Swift observatory. The location of this event was some 7.5 billion light years away. In conjunction with this, I covered the electromagnetic spectrum, and asked Bobby for examples representing each of the wavebands outside of the visible (infrared, microwave, radio, ultraviolet, X-ray, gamma-ray). We also calculated how far 7.5 billion light years is in miles: 4.5 billion trillion. That the source was that far away, and that the explosion was so bright, implies that this was an extremely catastrophic event, the only outcome being the formation of a black hole in a supernova explosion.
Session Minutes
60
Minutes Student Attended
60
Lesson Comments
Bobby was fairly focused considering it was Friday afternoon and I asked him to sit and watch a documentary. A good class!
Bobby was eager to get going with his black hole work, so I covered some concepts and terminology in today's class. We discussed the evolution of massive stars and the ensuing supernova explosion. The outer layers of the star form the 'supernova remnant', while the inner core collapses into a black hole. The gravitational force of a black hole is extremely strong, in fact, not even light can escape if it 'falls into' the black hole.
Session Minutes
60
Minutes Student Attended
60
Lesson Comments
Bobby was quite tired today, and his eyes were bothering him. So after a shorter formal class, we sat at a computer and browsed through some astronomy games on a NASA website. Amongst them was one that involved asteroids, comets, and extinction events. All in all, I think Bobby learned a lot, and did very well despite his tiredness.
Gwendolyn worked on a Word Search grid that involved astronomical terms. Whenever she located a word, I quizzed her on if she remembered what the term referred to. We discussed, amongst others, the following words: solar system, planet, comet, coma, galaxy, black hole, star, light year, asteroid, Milky Way. We finished class with a game of Yahtzee - Gwendolyn is very quick with mental arithmetic, both addition and multiplication. During the game, I threw some arithmetic problems Gwendolyn's way (in addition to the math incorporated in the game) and she did very well!
Today was Jackson's last day for this academic year at the Batt School, and Bobby very politely asked if he could spend the last hour with Jackson. Our group activity was a card game, and it was very interesting to witness Bobby's and Jackson's friendship. When relevant, the teachers asked (academic) questions related to what was going on (for example, three spoons had been placed as a triangle, and I asked what type of triangle that might be. Answer: isosceles). A fun afternoon, I hope Bobby has a good memory of his time with Jackson this past year.
Session Minutes
60
Minutes Student Attended
60
Lesson Comments
Bobby will have plenty of time to catch up on his black hole studies. It was very sweet to witness Bobby's and Jackson's strong friendship.
In today's class we started Bobby's work on black holes. I taught him the difference between the stellar remnant left behind after a Sun-like star evolves through its life cycle which is a white dwarf, and the resulting remnant when a star tens of times bigger than the Sun has exhausted its fuel which is a black hole (or a neutron star depending on the initial mass of the star). We discussed the differences between a planetary nebula (for the Sun-like star) and a supernova remnant (for the more massive star). We also covered the two (main) types of black hole – stellar and supermassive. Bobby asked some very interesting questions!
Session Minutes
60
Minutes Student Attended
60
Lesson Comments
I don't have the vocabulary to communicate this topic to a child of Bobby's age, but thankfully there are beautiful images online of supernova remnants. But he did react with a giggle when I told him massive stars go 'kaboom', ie the supernova explosion.
Today Gwendolyn reviewed several astronomical objects via Hangman. We went through the asteroid belt (and hence discussed the nature of asteroids), the Milky Way (and galaxies), and several planets. Gwendolyn herself came up with the term 'black hole' for me to guess, which I thought was very enterprising of her. We obviously had to talk about the origin and nature of black holes.
Session Minutes
60
Minutes Student Attended
60
Lesson Comments
I really hope I'm doing the right thing by Gwendolyn ... but she appeared very relaxed today, so that at least was good.
Thursday, March 24, 2016
09:00 - 11:00; 120 min.
Enrichment
Letters -
Analise and I continued with the alphabet pages K through N, drawing pictures of whatever we could think of that started with those letters.
Tuesday, March 22, 2016
12:30 - 01:15; 45 min.
Science enrichment:
Garden -
After Lunch, Alalise and I worked in the garden. She helped place a weed barrier around the flowers and vegetables, to keep them safe. She asked lots of questions about the garden and did a good job helping. She found a snail shell and was curious what was inside the shell. We took the shell to the lab, and cut it in half so she could examine the inner workings of the shell.
01:30 - 02:30; 60 min.
Science:
The water hole - Graeme Base -
Baylie and I read and explored the book “The water hole” by Graeme Base. This book illustrates the need to conserve water, by showing different animals at the water hole. Each page depicts a different continent (or habitat), and a main animal drinking at the waterhole. Hidden on each page are ten other endemic species from that ecosystem.
