space odyssey
02.21.14 volunteer update
Click below for quick access to:
Space Odyssey News
Trainings and Meetings
Storytelling with Uniview
Space Science Lectures & Events
Museum News and Lectures
Volunteer Enrichment Committee (VEC) Events
space odyssey news
KUDOS
Thanks to everybody for your great work over the holiday weekend and at Science Lounge! Things are bound to ramp-up in the coming weeks as we approach Spring Break, so there will be more fun to be had.
STEVE LEE UPDATE
Our intrepid Mars-phile, Steve Lee is at home and doing well, here he is in his own words:
"Today [2/13/14] was a good day. I got about an hour of walking in, and also have cut back on the [pain meds] I've been on since last week. I'm seeing improvement in my mobility daily, and am looking forward to seeing everyone again in a month or so. Space Odyssey is in great hands, so keep inspiring all those visitors!" Cheers to Steve!
EARTHVIEWER APP ON IPADS
Thanks much to Dick Nielsen for the suggestion on this. We've installed this interesting and useful app on both iPads in Space Odyssey. This app illustrates the Earth's geologic history in a unique way and could be good to use while facilitating the SOS, especially the Paleo Plate Tectonics animation. To learn more about it, check out this link:
ASTROTOT HAND SANITIZER
Due to the impending obsolescence of the hand sanitizer refills, we're going to be removing the hand sanitizer dispenser in the Astrotot. Please direct/inform guests that they can use the bathrooms nearby or the sink near the Stream Table to wash-up--which is actually better than using hand sanitizer anyway. We'll also be posting signage to this effect once the dispenser has been removed. If you have questions, let me know. Thanks!
SPACE O HIGHLIGHT OF THE MONTH
Starting this month, we'll be highlighting one exhibit in Space O for your edification. I submit for your consideration: Shuttle Docking. You can watch our very own Dimitri Klebe instructing you on the intricacies of shuttle maneuvering in this video located on the Portal here:
You can also watch the video from the Portal homepage here:
Thanks to Samantha, Kim, Marta and Dimitri for making this happen!
PLEASE FILL OUT YOUR UPDATE FORM ASAP
NOTE: If you've already turned in your form, please disregard this message. These forms need to be filled out by all volunteers who started prior to June 2013. They're necessary as we had to change our waiver/liability...stuff. You can find blank forms at the reception desk in our office. Or...Click here to download the form. If you fill out the form on your computer at home, please save it on your home computer before sending it to me or Moe Shuley () otherwise it'll lose the data. Or you can just print it out and drop it off on my desk. If you don't know whether you've filled one of these out, here's a list of those who still need to do so: Click here to see if you still need to fill out an update form.Thanks much all!
TIP OF THE WEEK
Thanks to Mari Mahanna for this tip: When she sees kids using the Tilt Table as a merry-go-round, Mari steps up and teaches the kids how to use it as it was intended. I've tried this method and it works very well. Thanks Mari! If you've got a tip you'd like to share with the rest of the Space O crew, let me know.
LIS CART UPDATE
The coffee drink bag has been removed due to irreparable damage. We've replaced it with an orange juice bag. This is the last drink bag we have, so please be careful with it. Rich in Education Collections is working on getting more food items from NASA but there's no guarantees.
SOS UPDATE
Some of you might be using the EarthNow datasets on the iPad, or have at least seen this dataset list in the Library and might wonder about it. Turns out it's the result of an ongoing project based at the University of Wisconsin (my alma mater, go Bucky! ;)) Anyway, this project creates SOS viewable vignettes and datasets about relevant, recent global climatic and weather-related events on Earth. We've added a couple of links to the EarthNow website on the SOS page of the Portal and NOAA is working on linking the EarthNow datasets on the iPad to the corresponding webpages on the EarthNow website. To check out EarthNow on the Portal, go here:
Also, you can now find a couple of DMNS datasets/playlists on the NOAA SOS site, See the Seas, and Mars Landing Sites, Cool eh?
INTERESTING AND USEFUL WEBSITES
This is a very useful animation to use with the public when discussing human missions to Mars:
Thanks to Tony Owens for this suggestion.
Jim Nelson sent in this website about "gravity waves" in the atmosphere influencing thunderstorm activity:
NASA TV OFFLINE TILL APRILish
From about mid-February to mid-April, we'll have to use the laptops to stream NASA TV on any of the screens in the exhibit because the satellite dish on the roof has to be relocated for some work.
STREAM TABLE ISSUES
There is a crack in the Stream Table (dear Liza) and we're working on a solution, will update as I'm able.
MARS DIRT CUBES
These are being ordered/replaced as we lost a couple.
ASTROTOT PANEL REPAIRS
We're still waiting on parts for this repair. Turns out the whole panel needs to be rebuilt. This will more than likely not happen until sometime in the middle of 2014.
SCFD COMMUNITY FREE DAYS
As part of the Museum's agreement to receive funds from SCFD, which account for a significant portion of the Museum's operating budget, the Museum offers "community free days" throughout the year to allow those who can't afford admission the privilege to visit DMNS. Below are the dates for the 2014 free days.
The Museum is offering 12 Community Free Days in 2014, made possible by the Scientific & Cultural Facilities District. For more information, click here.
- Sunday, March 2
- Sunday, April 13
- Saturday, April 26 (Día de los Niños)
- Monday, June 2
- Monday, June 30
- Sunday, July 20
- Monday, September 8
- Sunday, September 28
- Monday, October 27
- Monday, December 1
trainings and meetings
SPACE ODYSSEY NEW VOLUNTEER TRAINING PART ONE
NEW TIME: Monday February 24, 2014
5:45 to 9 PM
Galaxy Stage Space Odyssey
Food and drink provided
RSVP to Dave Blumenstock by Monday February 24
This training, also known as the Space Odyssey Educational Philosophy A Training, is part one of a two-part training series for all new Space Odyssey volunteers. It's a fun night where you get to learn about the reasons why we teach the way we do. Plus you'll learn new methods to educate the public and get a personal tour of the Mars diorama--you will go to Mars! This training is required of all new Space Odyssey volunteers.
storytelling with uniview
by Dr. Ka Chun Yu, Curator of Space Science, DMNS
Welcome to the first in an ongoing series about how to tell effective astronomy stories using Uniview -- either on the Orbits Table or in the Gates Planetarium. Of course, you don't need to use these suggestions exclusively with the Uniview software. You could be in front of the Science On a Sphere, or at a star party, or talking to people next to you in line at the post office. But the genesis of these ideas are based on what you can do with the visualization tools that we have in Space Odyssey, so they are best paired with the visuals from Uniview.
Comments, suggestions, questions, and corrections are welcome, so feel free to email me!
...
Scale in the Solar System
For this inaugural column, I would like to begin with a discussion of the distances in the Solar System. (Scale in the rest of the Universe will be a topic for another time.) Sizes and distances in outer space are concepts difficult for most people to comprehend. Since most of us do not have any direct experience, our mental models are typically built from a mish-mash of ideas picked up and half-remembered from books, the Internet, TV shows and movies, teachers and other acquaintances. Hence you will see remarkable misconceptions amongst the public, such as the Sun and Moon being close in distance from Earth, that the space shuttle has traveled to the stars, and so forth.
If you want to make an impression about how big space truly is, start off at the Earth. Since we cannot land on the planet at the Orbits Table, I like to attach the camera to the International Space Station, and move time forward at normal speed (1 second of simulation time equaling 1 second of real time). You can point out to the visitor that if she was orbiting with the ISS, that is how fast the Earth's surface -- 250 miles below -- would be scrolling by underneath (or overhead, depending on your perspective) at 17,000 mph. Another impressionable fact is how close the edge of space and the ISS is to the Earth's surface. The distance from Denver to Grand Junction is only about 240 miles. Thus a 4 hour road trip, depending on I-70 road conditions, is equivalent to driving up to the Space Station, if your car could magically drive straight up.
If I slowly pull away from the Earth (toggle on/off translational friction to manage how fast you zoom away), I also like to bring in the idea of light travel time. Distances in the Solar System are large enough that it becomes meaningless to talk to the public in kilometers or miles. I also tend to shy away from astronomical units, unless you have someone already knowledgeable about that term. Here are some memorable tidbits that I've used:
- Light reflecting off a person standing a yard away from you takes 3 billionths of a second to get to your eyes.
- If you time it right, the orbit of the Moon will appear as you mention that signals from the Moon take 1.3 seconds -- about the length of a pause in a conversation -- to get to Earth.
- Swing around so that the Sun is visible. Light from the Sun takes about 8 1/2 minutes to get to Earth. If the Sun were to go dark during a commercial break of a sitcom, we wouldn't see it happen here on Earth until well into the next commercial break.
- Depending on where Mars is in its orbit, radio signals can take anywhere from 4 to 21 minutes to travel to Earth.
- For the remaining planets, the light travel times between each body and the Sun are: 43 minutes for Jupiter, 80 minutes to Saturn, 160 minutes to Uranus, 4 hours to Neptune.
If you look closely at the labels, you will see that they are marked by the year, and a parenthetical light travel time in light hours ("lh"). In the year 2050, here are the distances to the four spacecraft:
Voyager I: 35 lh
Voyager II: 30 lh
Pioneer 10: 28 lh
Pioneer 11: 24 lh
These are four of the fastest spacecraft we have ever launched (the fastest is New Horizons which is due for rendezvous with Pluto on Bastille Day, 2015). By 2050, they will have been in flight for 73-78 years, which means in roughly a human lifetime, our fastest spacecraft will have traveled 1-1.5 light days or so. So even if they were aimed at Alpha Centauri (which they are not), it will take more than 1000 human lifetimes for them to reach the nearest star. And of course, the distances to stars within our solar neighborhood are just the beginning of our journey into the rest of the Universe.
Note:
Comparing distances spacecraft will have traveled in a human lifetime was something I first heard from Carter Emmart, Director of Astrovisualization at the American Museum of Natural History, and one of the people partially responsible for the creation of Uniview.
space science lectures & events
Digital Earth: Floods
Using global satellite imagery, geologist Bob Raynolds and space scientist Ka Chun Yu will take you on a journey to examine flooding and extreme weather at home in Colorado and around the world. Get a global perspective on both the causes and consequences of disasters, such as the recent typhoon in the Philippines, and explore the connections between these widespread weather phenomena.
Location:
Gates Planetarium
Date/Time:
Tuesday, February 25, 7 p.m.
Tickets:
$8 member, $10 nonmember
60 Minutes in Space
Go "behind the stories" in space science using the best images and animation available to help understand new developments. Seating is limited to first come, first served.
Wednesday, February 26
7 p.m.
Gates Planetarium
Free
RESERVATION INFO
Volunteers may attend some events for free on a space available basis by calling Adult Programs at 303.370.6303 or emailing .
This is only for lectures, for other programs, like Science Lounge, please call Reservations, 303.370.6000, thank you!
museum news
SUMMER TEEN PROGRAMS AT DMNS LOOKING FOR VOLUNTEERS
Click here to read about the Summer Teen Volunteer Programs:
SPANISH LANGUAGE PROGRAMMING AT DMNS
As part of the Museum's new strategic plan, museum educators will be offering more and more bilingual Spanish/English programming. This will allow us to reach more diverse audiences from the Denver Metro Area. When you see or hear some of our educators teaching in Spanish, try learning a few words yourself or practice the words and phrases that you already know! Every day is a new learning adventure, even linguistically. Thank you so much!
Also, for your information, Sara Torres, Bilingual Museum Educator, welcomes anyone who wants to practice or wants some vocabulary/pronunciation help on their area to ask her for help, and she would love to help out.
DMNS LECTURE SERIES INFORMATION
Click here for Evening Lectures
Click here for Museum IMAX information
Click here for Museum Planetarium Information
Click Here to Learn About the New Morgridge Family Exploration Center
volunteer enrichment committee
Click here for more information about VEC events:
Or see the bulletin board in the Volunteer Lounge for more info.
DaveBlumenstock
Coordinator of Volunteers for Space Science
Denver Museum of Nature & Science
Phone 303.370.8344
Fax 303.370.6005
Join the Museum's Online Community