Texas Night Sky Festival
What a fun day it was at the Texas Night Sky Festival! There were a lot of girl scouts and families there ready to learn about how to save our night sky and learn about astronomy. There were so many booths and supporters for the festival!
It was inspiring and exciting to see so much interest in caring about our night sky. With support from volunteers Joyce and Andrea from the Austin Astronomical Society, we took many kids and families on a scale model tour of the Solar System and taught the public about how to save our night skies with our ‘Design a Light Sheild’ booth.
Using a lunch sack filled with two popsicle sticks, two straws, a piece of foil, two pieces of cardboard and access to tape and a glue gun, kids designed a light shield intended to shine light from glaring street lights down to the ground so we can see our beautiful night sky, make our streets safer, and save electricity.
They came up with some very creative shields! They tested them out on Austin downtown micro-environments we set up to mimic a bright downtown with a glaring street light. Thank you to Globe at Night for inspiring the idea of making a micro-environment.
It was a joy to see their wheels spinning as they chose different materials to construct their light shields.
Download a description of the Design a Light Shield activity here.
Watch a video of the activity in action at the Texas Night Sky Festival: https://vimeo.com/367294426
This video is also included in Emma Schmidt’s Fight for the Stars: Be a Knight for the Night© curriculum Lesson 1 Lesson 4 accessible here: http://idatexas.org
Watch a video of me explaining the activity: https://vimeo.com/480929166
On the Solar System Walk, girl scouts, boy scouts and families got a chance to feel how far our planets are from the Sun. As always, they had some great information to share and good questions! As always, it was inspiring to be around kids and families interested in learning about astronomy!
