History of Science Summary 2/25/2013

Creative Astronomy!

Our budding astronomers really rose to the challenge this week and designed some very creative and successful astronomical monuments!  Bravo to all of you - I was really impressed with the effectiveness and the diversity in your designs.

The biggest obstacle at first seemed to be just getting the brand new clay softened up enough to work with!  Those first fifteen minutes of working the clay did provide valuable time however for team members to discuss their design concepts and compare ideas they had been researching and developing independently during the week.  Soon students were shaping, carving, cutting, and molding the clay into various forms and figures.

Teams were challenged to create monument designs on one landscape that could make special alignments at: 1) the equinoxes (sunrise or sunset) and 2) summer or winter solstice.

Carved figure, casting face shadow on landscape

Stone circle with shadow-casting heel stones, similar to Stonehenge

On left: Illumination tube directing a light beam. On right: Multi-layer tower casting shadow

Testing model alignment at equinox

We used a specially designed "horizon table" and a desk lamp to simulate the sun rising up over the horizon at the spring and fall equinoxes and the summer and winter solstices.  Students tested their designs and then adjusted the locations of their monuments to align them with the rising and setting "sun", making certain that the light cast on their monument illuminated a special feature or cast a shadow at a specified point - much like the ancient astronomical monuments we discussed last week in class.

Casting a shadow at equinox sunrise

Three pyramids with aligned tunnels to direct sunlight and illuminate figure

Monument aligned so that shadow "arms" just touch the middle figure at winter solstice sunrise

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Next Week...

In preparation for our next class, students should read chapters 6-8 in the textbook and complete pages 20 and 21 in the Student Quest Guide.  We will continue our discussion on the emerging ideas of the earliest scientists/philosophers from Ionia and begin to look at how mathematics became an invaluable tool in the advancement of scientific thought.