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 Guest Editor: Emma Lewis an the hot seat again! After staying up late to watch the Orionids on Wednesday night, you’ll excuse the fact that not only am I still bleary-eyed but I’m also a bit starry-eyed too — as you’ll see by the content of this newsletter. I’ve managed to rustle up some top tips from Blue Peter astronomer, Anton Vamplew, some great astronomy prizes in Mouses at the Ready and a tasty Activity of the Week to fit in with the space theme. Here’s what else is coming up: 1. THROW A PARTY: In the name of gross science... 2. TAKE TIME OUT: To answer our little survey, please! 3. ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK: It’s truly astronomical, but tasty too! 4. TOP TIPS FROM ANTON VAMPLEW: No sticky back plastic required! 5. RWW: Help, I’m running out of astronomy puns! 6. Mouses at the Ready: FOR ASTRONOMY KIT AND BOOKS 7. Where’s the sense in that? IAN’S GETTING TOUCHY! 8. JOKES OF THE WEEK 9. WINNERS WINNERS WINNERS |
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01. NEW TO PLANET SCIENCE: An alternative to Trick-or-Treating...
New to the Parents section this week (but fun for primary teachers too) is the first of a few science themed parties to treat your kids to. The first is called Little Horrors and gives you all the info you'll need to throw a party for any child obsessed with the gruesome and the gross. It's a year-round theme but suitably available in time for Halloween. Here are a few highlights: downloadable décor featuring print-and-stick together giant mummies and vampires AND some revolting print-and-make paper chains. That should keep the kids busy while you are whipping up Spider Cakes, Swamp Surprise or the delightful Fake Vomit recipe (I think they've gone a little too far this time…). There's also party games such as Mummy Wrap and Live-Live-Undead, and all parts of the party kit come with extra-added science, as you'd expect, so you can learn while you're preparing for the bash. It's all truly DREADFUL, but the kids will LOVE it! Next up, apparently, will be a party called Little Darlings — the classic science sleepover party, which sounds much nicer! To see Little Horrors click here: Next week’s newsletter will also be Halloween themed so if there are any spooky science experiments, facts or jokes you would like to see in the newsletter then please send them to: planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk with ‘HALLOWEEN THEME’ as the title.  |
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| 02. GIVE US A FEW MINUTES: But first put the kettle on... ...And by the time it’s boiled you could have completed our survey. Every year or so we ask our visitors and readers if you could spare a few minutes to complete our survey about the website and the newsletters. Call it an appraisal if you like, we just need to know that we’re on the right track — if our newsletters delight you or not, or if there are any areas we could improve on. Or, indeed, if you think we’re missing the point totally. (Hope not!) The survey is open to all our website visitors, whether you’re a parent, a teacher or a student, we'd really value your feedback. All you have to do is log on to the Planet Science homepage and a window will pop up after a few seconds asking you to ‘tell us what you think’! After you’ve completed the survey your details will be entered into a prize draw and four lucky winners will EACH receive £70 worth of book tokens. A very nice incentive as I’m sure you’ll agree. So the kettle’s on, you’ve done the survey, but where’s the biscuits? |
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| 03. ACTIVITY OF THE WEEK — Tasty snacks with a science theme! If the Orionids have left you hungry for more, then these biscuits make ideal treats for any sky-gazing nights you might be planning. Of course, you don’t have to be into astronomy to enjoy making these biscuits, and what better way to introduce your budding astronomers to the Solar System than to make edible versions of the planets! You will need: * 175g plain flour * 100g butter or margarine * 50g caster sugar * Four different sized biscuit cutters * Items to decorate — coloured icing, hundreds and thousands and liquorice. What to do: 1. Pre-heat the oven to 150°C/300°F Gas 2 2. Cream the butter or margarine and caster sugar together until they are light and fluffy. Stir in the flour and, once mixed, knead the dough together until it forms a ball. Add a sprinkle of flour if the dough is sticky. 3. Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface until it is about 5mm thick. 4. Use the smallest biscuit cutter to cut three biscuits from the dough (Pluto, Mercury and Mars). 5. Use the next-size-up biscuit cutter to make two biscuits (Venus and Earth). 6. Use the next larger biscuit cutter to make another two biscuits (Neptune and Uranus). 7. Use the largest biscuit cutter to cut the last two biscuits (Saturn and Jupiter). 8. Place the biscuits on a baking tray and bake in the centre of the oven for 25 minutes or until golden brown. 9. Let the biscuits cool before decorating. 10. Keep track of the planets as you cut them out so you can decorate them correctly after they are cooked. Now for the decoration: Mercury has a rocky surface and is orange-red in colour, so use coloured icing and hundreds and thousands to decorate this biscuit. Venus is covered with think, yellow clouds so you will need yellow icing. Earth is an obvious one! Decorate with green and blue icing and a sprinkle of icing sugar to resemble the clouds. Decorate your Mars biscuit with red icing. Jupiter is a giant ball of yellow, orange and red gas arranged in stripes. Use stripes of coloured icing decorate with a red sweet in the middle to resemble Jupiter’s Great Red Spot. Saturn looks yellow because of its foggy atmosphere and is famous for its rings, so use yellow icing and lay a few pieces of liquorice on the biscuit to resemble its rings. Uranus looks green so decorate with green icing. Neptune is blue with faint stripes so decorate with blue icing and make faint stripes with sprinkles of icing sugar. Finally for Pluto, sprinkle a little icing sugar on the top of the biscuit to resemble this icy, rocky planet. Now all you have to do is arrange the biscuits in the correct planetary order and serve. I sound just like I’ve stepped off the set of Blue Peter, don’t you think? Talking of Blue Peter... |
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| 04. ANTON VAMPLEW’S TOP TIPS: Here’s one I prepared earlier... Earlier this week I was sat with a class of Year 10 students, talking about the Orionids, and I discovered that a handful of pupils were really interested in astronomy but weren’t sure how to get started. So I wrote to Blue Peter astronomer, Anton Vamplew, asking if he could give me some advice to pass onto the pupils. Rather than keep his advice to myself (that’s just not the way we do it here at Planet Science), I thought I’d share it with you, as you may find it useful if you know any wannabe astronomers: "The best way to get to know the night sky is with a simple guidebook and your eyes. You definitely don’t need a telescope to begin with. If you or someone you know have a pair of binoculars then try looking at the Moon — you can see craters, shadows, mountains and valleys. Don’t worry if you live in a town with lots of light pollution, you can still do plenty of constellation spotting as some bright stars can always be seen. Before you go outside, make sure your eyes have dark-adapted. This means turning the lights off, or down, in your house which allows your eyes to see better in the dark. This way you’ll see more stars. This takes about 10 minutes. Use a torch with a red bulb to find your way around —the red light will not affect your dark-adapted eyes. You can cover a torch with red, transparent sweet wrappers if you can’t find a torch with a red bulb and this will do the job just as well. Don’t forget to check the Internet (http://www.vamplew.co.uk/) for the latest night sky information. There are planets, shooting stars, comets, the International Space Station and eclipses to name but a few to see so you’ll never be stuck for something to find. Finally, your library may have details of local astronomical societies. These are a great way to make new space friends and they also have observing evenings where you can go along and look through large telescopes." Thanks Anton! He also tells me he’s releasing a book next year (Simple Stargazing) so watch this space as it might just appear as a future competition prize! |
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| 05. RECOMMENDED WEBSITES OF THE WEEK: Are you lost in Cyber Space? Continuing with the astronomy theme, we thought it only fair to bring you the space highlights of the Web. Starting us off is a website called ‘OLOGY’ — it means ‘the study of’ and on the American Museum of Natural History’s website there’s an ology there for you (okay, astronomy isn’t quite an ‘ology’ more of an ‘onomy’ but you get the point!). In that particular section we begin the journey with a feature on the Universe’s main attraction — gravity! The topic is clearly explained with bite-sized facts that are easy to digest PLUS great-looking graphics and amusing cartoons. In fact all the topics, from The Big Bang to The Milky Way, are presented in such a way that they will appeal to kids as young as 7 and to adults as old as 80! There’s something here for everyone. Here’s the URL: http://ology.amnh.org/astronomy/index.htm Next up, we had to give NASA a mention somewhere in this section, so worth a peak is NASA’s STARCHILD. This section of the huge NASA site calls itself a learning centre for young astronomers and it does exactly what is says on the packet! You can navigate this site at two levels depending on age and ability. In each level you’ll find the main facts of the Solar System along with movies to watch to add to the Starchild experience. The movies can be viewed in Quicktime and take a while to load but they’re well worth the wait. Here’s the link: http://starchild.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/StarChild/StarChild.html Finishing off this week’s RWW is a site called SPACE KIDS, brought to you by Space.com. The Teacher section contains a featured space theme that has several components working together to offer an inquiry-based look at a space topic. The ‘meat and potatoes’ of a module are the lessons: teacher-tested, hands-on activities that require only printouts and a few simple supplies. You'll find the module components listed on the home page and, so you never get lost, in the pull-down menu in the upper left-hand corner of each page. You can also go through all parts of a module, or just choose the elements that suit you. So if you’re looking for some ideas to enhance a lesson or two on space then click here: http://www.space.com/teachspace/ |
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| 06. MOUSES AT THE READY: For an astronomy kit for budding astronomers Up for grabs this week is an Astronomy Kit from Young Scientist and two Internet-Linked books on Astronomy and Space from Usborne. Inside the Young Scientist Astronomy Kit it you’ll find a telescope with three magnification lenses to choose from, a tripod to set your telescope on, a star chart to refer to and a model of a space rocket to build and paint. The Usborne books contain stunning pictures of space from space probes and satellites, ideas for astronomy projects, space science experiments and website links for further research into a topic. All you have to do to enter the competition is send your name and address to: planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk with ‘KIT ME OUT’ as the subject. The draw will take place at the usual time of 5pm next Thursday and the winners will appear in next Friday’s newsletter. Good luck! |
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| 07. WHERE’S THE SENSE IN THAT? DON’T GET SO TOUCHY! Leaving space behind now, and moving on to the sense of touch in the next part of Ian Francis’s sense series... So far the senses I’ve described have been pretty much confined to certain parts of the body, like the eye for vision and the ear for hearing and balance. The sense of touch can’t be pinned down in this manner, as touch organs are spread over the entire body. Indeed, the answer to the pub quiz question of ‘what’s the largest organ in the body?’ could well be ‘the skin’ rather than the ‘liver’. When an object presses the skin (or membrane) over a touch receptor it squishes them out of shape or touches a nearby hair. The permeability of the receptor cell’s membrane alters, leading to a change in voltage across it, which sets off a nerve impulse to the brain. In actual fact, receptors in the dermis layer of the skin don’t just do touch. There are a variety of different types of receptor, responsive to touch, pain and temperature. The most sensitive part of your body is the tip of your tongue because here you’ll find the greatest number of receptors. It’s why biting your tongue is so painful. The tongue is less sensitive to temperature though, explaining why even when we’re older (and supposedly wiser) we still manage to burn our mouths with hot drinks and pies. Here are a few touchy facts to snuggle up with on a dark night: An instrument called an aesthesiometer is used to measure sensitivity to touch. It’s a rather grand-sounding name for a bit of kit with two needle-points whose distance apart can be varied. (Think of drawing compasses). The idea is that the more sensitive the skin, the closer together the needle points can be on the skin, with us still able to detect them as two separate points rather than one. The skin on your back isn’t the greatest at doing this. Meissner's corpuscles are receptors that are especially sensitive to light touch. Among other places, they are found on your lips and nipples. You have about 2 square metres of skin in total. Every square centimetre of your skin contains around 200 pain receptors but only 15 receptors for pressure, 6 for cold and 1 for warmth. Insects are far more sensitive to touch than humans are. They even have touch sensitive hairs on their eyes. These hairs are extremely sensitive to even small air currents, explaining why swatting a fly is such a tricky prospect. A kitten is born with its eyes closed. Heat receptors on its nose help it find its way to its mum to suckle. In fish, lateral line receptors are sensitive to changes in water pressure. They may be responsible for keeping shoals of fish in formation as they move quickly through the water. It enables some fish to find and capture prey even if blindfolded. Blimey! I imagine trying to blindfold a fish is about as easy as trying to find a joke in my inbox that wasn’t too rude or that we hadn’t used before... |
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08. JOKES OF THE WEEK |
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| 09. WINNERS Lastly, we had ‘schools’ of entries for last week’s ‘Shark Tale’ draw to win a pair of cinema tickets to see the film. The lucky winner of the tickets was: Lorna Thorne from Bournville, Birmingham. The competition was pretty easy, but the difficult part now is choosing who to take with you! Expect the tickets in the post soon. - o - O - o - Thanks to all the contributors hor today’s newsletter. I’ll be taking the reins once again next week so please send any material you may have for next week’s Halloween special to: planet-science.news@nesta.org.uk Have a great week! |
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