[meteorite-list] Meteorite presentation and thanks

From: matt <metlist_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 16 Jan 2007 20:08:45 +0000
Message-ID: <45AD30CD.6050209_at_plu.to>

Hi all...

Back in March '06 I posted a request for affordable giveaways to the
list since I was planning a meteorite presentation for a group of
students where I work (I'm a secondary science teacher in the UK).

Stan contacted me and VERY generously donated sufficient slices of NWA
869 (among others) for the students to have a slice each along with a
single micro of Dhofar 280 as a 'star prize'.

Originally the event should have been in June, which slipped to July,
and then we reached the summer holidays. The delays were because I was
intending to use Celestia for another part of the day and was waiting
for our IT technician to install it on the network - I'm still waiting
today! Eventually I decided to stop waiting for the software and gave
the presentation the week before Christmas to a group of Y9 and 10
students (13-15 years old) and one of their parents!

The presentation itself was a great success, I used a variety of ideas
I'd picked up from another thread here last year. Next we each sanded a
corner off small fragments I had taken from some unclassified 5 cent
material of my own, metal was visible in some of the fragments through a
loupe and we noted the sulfurous smell (something else I remember
reading about in a thread here).

We then did a lottery to decide which student got which of Stan's
donated slices, and the students began examining them and identifying
many of the (meteorite specific) features we had talked about (NWA 869
really is such a great stone for this kind of thing). Before the
students left (armed with their first ever pieces of meteorite, and the
knowledge to convince friends and parents that these were
extraterrestrial and not just 'some random rock') I set them a
challenge. I asked them to write a short meteorite related poem (or
limerick) over Christmas and the best one would receive the Dhofar 280
micro.

The entries had to be in by last week, so I thought I'd include a few
here. I don't guarantee them being 100% scientifically accurate, or make
any other claims, it was meant predominantly as a bit of fun and an
accessible activity any of the students could participate in. If you've
read this far I hope you like them (I actually don't think any of our
students fully grasped 'limerick' either, as the first entry here
demonstrates, but it is amusing nonetheless). In no particular order:

a.
There was a dumb man from Jupiter
who is steadily growing stupider,
He's not very bright
because a meteorite,
Hit him on the head in the middle of the night.

b. (this was the parents entry)
There was a strange object traveling at pace,
It came shooting to Earth with amazing grace.
It glowed and it sang,
It crashed with a bang.
It must be a meteorite from space.

c. (The winner)
Rocks from Venus, the Moon and Mars,
Dropping to Earth like falling stars.
Covered in rock and filled with iron,
Dreamt of by poets even Byron.
Famous for crashing into peoples cars,
Meteorites shattering into shards.

(The last one has made me consider the possibility of meteorites from
Venus - is it's gravitational field prohibitively strong and does it's
closer proximity to the Sun make it unlikely? Don't I recall reading
about a potential Earth sourced meteorite (i'm certain there's a better
way to phrase that)? Presumably if rock has escaped the Earths
gravitational field, it could also escape from Venus? Maybe the
difficulty would be in identification?).

We had an excellent time, many of the students were inspired and I've
had several interesting conversations with them since. Another HUGE
thanks must go to Stan for his generosity - Thank You, and a final
thanks to the innumerable list members who unknowingly contributed to my
presentation to varying degree's through their comments I've read and
assimilated from the list.

Thanks...

Matt.
Received on Tue 16 Jan 2007 03:08:45 PM PST