I wish I had a program like this when
I was in fourth or fifth grade to show me that science
is super exciting and not just something that you go to class,
and that's it.
Dark Skies, Bright Kids is a primarily
graduate-student-run organization
at the University of Virginia.
We do a lot of outreach with elementary,
early-middle-school-aged students in Charlottesville
to bring astronomy into the classroom.
All of our activities are meant as games or experiments.
Last week we did the impacts experiment.
We have buckets filled with flour,
and they drop different marbles and golf balls for them
to get a sense of how different craters on the moon and Mars
could have been formed.
It's more of an experiment, and they have to try different
things and see what works and what doesn't.
And sometimes they come to the right answer,
and sometimes they don't.
So it's teaching them that it's OK to not quite know,
and it's OK to guess.
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Their sense of wonder helps them view the universe
in a totally different way.
They have no preconceived notions about how things
should work or shouldn't work.
They can ask crazy questions.
That's a lot of what astronomers do
is they ask these questions that seemed
like they were a ridiculous question to begin with.
Like, "what do you mean the Earth is not
the center of the solar system?"
Being able to get them into science and critical thinking
like that is important at an early age.
The kids always have fun.
That's our number one priority.
The age group that these kids are at start to think science
isn't cool anymore.
And what we're really trying to do
is teach them that science is cool, and this is for everyone.
It's super interesting.
You shouldn't be bored in your science classes.
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It's really great to be able to provide these telescopes,
provide the planetarium, provide all
the different hands-on activities with the kids
in our club and the community at large.
It's really important to us to reach as many kids
as we absolutely can.
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Learning with the kids and having them remind us
that what we do is really cool, I
think we get a lot more from it than we realize.