Day 33: Off Topic, But Educating Anyway!

In geometry, we continued our discussion about truth tables and, as per my wont, I managed to get sidetracked and started talking about space travel and all of the scientifically inaccurate pieces of the new George Clooney and Sandra Bullock movie, "Gravity."

My favorite astrophysicist, Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson spent a large portion of his twitter feed listing the reasons that the movie made little scientific sense.

Mysteries of #Gravity: Astronaut Clooney informs medical doctor Bullock what happens medically during oxygen deprivation.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 7, 2013

The film #Gravity should be renamed "Angular Momentum"
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 6, 2013

Mysteries of #Gravity: Why Bullock, a medical Doctor, is servicing the Hubble Space Telescope.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 6, 2013

Mysteries of #Gravity: How Hubble (350mi up) ISS (230mi up) & a Chinese Space Station are all in sight lines of one another.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 6, 2013

Mysteries of #Gravity: When Clooney releases Bullock's tether, he drifts away. In zero-G a single tug brings them together.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 6, 2013

Mysteries of #Gravity: Why anyone is impressed with a zero-G film 45 years after being impressed with "2001:A Space Odyssey"
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 6, 2013

Mysteries of #Gravity: Why Bullock's hair, in otherwise convincing zero-G scenes, did not float freely on her head.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 6, 2013

Mysteries of #Gravity: Nearly all satellites orbit Earth west to east yet all satellite debris portrayed orbited east to west
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 6, 2013

Mysteries of #Gravity: Satellite communications were disrupted at 230 mi up, but communications satellites orbit 100x higher.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 6, 2013

Mysteries of #Gravity: Why we enjoy a SciFi film set in make-believe space more than we enjoy actual people set in real space
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 6, 2013

My Tweets hardly ever convey opinion. Mostly perspectives on the world. But if you must know, I enjoyed #Gravity very much.
— Neil deGrasse Tyson (@neiltyson) October 7, 2013

He is the Carlos to my Cecil.

 We talked about the difficulties of space travel and the pioneers who will travel to Mars and never return.  It was a very lively conversation.  Then one student asked why we would land ON Mars and the Moon, but when we come back, the people go INTO Earth.

This is not the first time I've heard this.  Apparently, there is this conception that when we are walking on the ground, we are "inside the Earth" and when we go into space, we are "outside of the Earth."  They seem to think that the surface of the Earth is a sphere within a sphere, which I suppose could be argued if you consider the atmosphere as separate from the Earth itself.  I had NEVER heard this idea before last year when a kid INSISTED that right now, as we walk around, we are INSIDE the Earth.

I don't even know where to begin with this.  It puts me in mind of Planet Druidia.

In pre-algebra, we continued working with decimals and fractions, and converting back and forth between the two.  The activity today had the students draw lines between equivalent rational numbers with the final result being a beautiful picture.  I was honestly worried that they would be bored, but most of them jumped in with both feet.

Next up! Fraction multiplication!  I'm not really excited about that topic, but I plan to deviate from the standard curriculum to talk about unit conversion and dimensional analysis.  You're welcome, science teachers.


On Tuesday (in-service Monday) the geometry kids will be working through the Promethean flipboard that I made around The Lady or the Tiger.  It's pretty basic and pretty awesome!

Not bad for a day where I slept through my alarm!