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The brilliant colors of the sunset have been painted over by the mystical navy blue of the night sky and as you enter the Astronomy classroom you can see the moon clearly through one of the many windows. The desks are arranged in their usual semi circle to help created a more personal environment, only something seems a bit off as you go to sit down. Both the desk and chair wobble as the legs on one side are longer than the other and cause you to lean quite a bit. Try not to fall out of your seat or have your things fall to the floor, yes?
Did you remember to use the lint roller on the small table outside of the classroom? It was there next to the sign that reads, "Not to be used as a brush for your hair."
A lamp, a quaffle, and 3 can lids painted black rest in the middle of the professor's desk. Professor Flamsteed, wearing the same top hat you may have spotted him with at the Opening Feast, can be seen standing to the right of his desk with a giddy expression on his face and offers you a salute as you move to take your seat.
So come on in and have a seat. Class will begin shortly.
⌦Lesson Progression
▸ question 1 :: what is your favorite season and why?
▸ question 2 :: why does the Earth have seasons?
▸ question 3 :: why does the fact that the Earth is tilted on its axis matter to our weather?
▸ question 4 :: what do June 21 and December 21 have in common?
▸ question 5 :: how could you prove that the Earth is spinning?
▸ activity :: PENDULUM DODGEBALL
▸ clarification! :: clarifying instructions & professor joins the game
▸ start wrapping up :: 6 ish hour warning before activity ends!
▸ class dismissed!
This lesson has officially started! Please do not announce your character arriving late and just pretend like they have been in class all along. You are free to jump in any time and should use the lesson progression links to keep up.
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So much space stuff was being discussed. As much as Lux had read up on Astronomy and understood a fair bit of this lesson, some of the things Professor Flamsteed was talking about confused her. More furious note taking, which was starting to make her hand hurt. Frowning slightly, she shook her hand a little to make it feel better before raising it to answer the question. "By looking at the stars? Constellations would appear to move in the sky, and maybe that was how they figured out t the earth was spinning?"
But it actually worked. Who would have thought. And see ,even after he said that more perfect answers were said. Seriously what is the fun in that. Nigel would rather be quiet and stare at Flameo like Ascanius then answer it perfectly.
Maybe that was him being a Seventh Year talking. Probably. Well Nigel had an answer to this question. But it was probably too inappropriate to say. So yeah. Best stay quiet and listen to all the textbook answers.
Maybe the activity will amuse him or maybe Flameo will jump up and dance some more.
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Bay smiled, he could answer this question hopefully. Raising his hand "Professor, If it was me back then I would look up at the sky and monitor the sun and moon, for they would never be in the same spot all the time, they move and circle the earth. But I guess one can say that they are revolving around earth but yeah I'm going to stick with that answer", ughhh he totally hoped that he didn't sound stupid.
fighting the urge to put his head on his desk he opted for listening to everyone else's answers.
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Quote:
"Now, I have one final question before we move on to the activity. We have discussed briefly how our ancestors, those ancient astronomers we are all decedents of, would look to the sky and theorize about just what is going on up there. I want you all to imagine you are one of these astronomers for a moment. How could you prove that the Earth is spinning? No spaceships allowed or meteorologists, obviously."
"A pendulum can be used to prove that Earth rotates. Pendulums swing in a straight path, but after several hours you can see that the path of the swinging pendulum rotates." She didn't think her answer was related to astronomy much, but it was how the rotation of the Earth had been proved.
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Attention, she was paying it, right.
Really she'd only perked up because of the mention of the activity. They just had to sit through one more question. That wouldn't have been so bad and the lion was sitting proper in her seat again. One more wouldn't make her brain dead and it might have been beneficial for the younger ones. Merlin knew some of them had some interesting answers.
Proving the earth moved without all the fancy stuff? She couldn't see why they'd need to but...
"Can you use the stars? The way they change positions at different times of the year and how you can't see some from certain months but in other months they're perfectly clear?"
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West had seen one of the giant pendulum's in action. It was a pretty cool sight. He put his hand up. "Watching the stars show there is some rotation, but it doesn't illustrate if its the planet that is moving, or if everything is moving around the planet. But if you have a big enough perfect pendulum with a big enough mass you can actually see its motion isn't just a back and forward swing, it will rotate at the same rate that the Earth does and gradually work around in a circle... kind of in a star shape if you happened to trace its path as it goes around. Little ones work too but you can't really sit there and watch because the movement is more slight so it would take longer to see that it has rotated all the way around."
Werrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrre they gonna make one?
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He considered the quaffle once more before his hand went up. "So, if the earth is tilted and the Northern Hemisphere and Southern Hemisphere's amount of daylight is affected by the solstices, wouldn't that mean that areas above the arctic circle would get too much sun on the solstice?" And by too much, he meant all day. And was the same true for the antarctic circle? Cutty let his fingers flip the edges of his textbook in anticipation of looking up page 163 and slowly let the uneven chair settle so that he was seated at a tilt.
Quote:
Originally Posted by sweetpinkpixie
Oh a GOOD question. Off topic slightly, but still a good question.
"There are several factors to be discussed here, in brief," he nodded. "Despite the name, which comes from the Latin for 'equal night,' implies and is widely accepted to mean that day and night are equal all over the globe, this is not entirely true - as you are hinting at yourself. They are nearly equal, but not exactly. I suggest looking at your textbook, page 171, after class for more specifics."
Because he, unfortunately, had not slotted time to cover these in length today.
"Excellent question."
Really, what had he just been about to talk about? Solstices. Oh but there was a hand raised and oooooooooooh yes GOOD question.
------- Cutty's reply to Flamsteed was here
"You are correct!" Airey exclaimed. "In fact the Earth's tilt makes it so that during solstices the sun may never set or never rise at one of the poles depending on the hemisphere and time of year. If you flip to the section of your textbook about the midnight sun, you will find some moving images that show you what it is like to experience the a summer solstice north of the Arctic Circle or south of the Antarctic Circle."
Tora's fingers itched to open her textbook to page 171 and as soon as Flamsteed turned the other way the pages just happened to accidentally open to page 171 exactly. She immediately became engrossed. That was she was engrossed until something in the class conversation caught her ear.
Tora couldn't tell if Cutty had actually heard her question and smugly answered it later, or if he was truly just adding to part of the classroom discussion. She gave him a long side glance, and was going to whisper something to make sure it was clear that she, the space fanatic, knew more about space than he did but she couldn't think of anything appropriately witty. Besides, this was her favorite class and it was disrespectful to talk right? So instead of addressing her classmate directly, she raised her hand to answer Professor Flamsteed's latest question.
"There are a couple ways, I think, that someone could measure if the Earth was spinning on an axis. I'm sure there is some sort of spell that you could, I don't know, shoot into outer space that would theoretically stay in the same position in that space. Once it reappeared in the sky it would theoretically have been a year. To measure a day it would need to also orbit the sun at the same speed as the Earth." she started off throwing ideas out there, but stopped when she realized that she was rambling. Okay, enough with the creative portion of this answer. She knew the real answer to this from the Muggle science museum her mother and father had taken her and her siblings to over the summer. At least staying with her parents was useful for something. "But if you don't want to use magic, you could always create a pendulum that will swing with the Earth's rotation. I think that's how the Muggle's did it?" she wasn't sure on the specifics, it was still the summer when she had seen the huge pendulum at the museum and so the details were a bit foggy.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by sweetpinkpixie
"Now, I have one final question before we move on to the activity. We have discussed briefly how our ancestors, those ancient astronomers we are all decedents of, would look to the sky and theorize about just what is going on up there. I want you all to imagine you are one of these astronomers for a moment. How could you prove that the Earth is spinning? No spaceships allowed or meteorologists, obviously."
How could they prove the earth was spinning? That was sort of a funny question, since they obviously couldn't back then. They didn't realize it for ages and ages, and rather thought that the earth was still and the universe was doing the spinning.
But in the spirit of that... "I suppose that seeing the stars move across the sky each night, but in trackable and repetitive ways helped. And not just night after night, but over time, year after year. Orion would move predictably across the sky one night, and then slightly differently the next, and slightly differently the next. Different constellations appeared during different times of the year, but they always came back year after year."
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Professor Top Hat didn't know what Cuckoo Warning Day was? He knew ALL of this hard stuff like solstices but didn't know about THAT? Dima was inwardly shocked, but he'd just explain to the man after class was over. When he told him what macking was. Mhm.
He didn't know the answer to this next question either, though. But he'd give it a shot!
"'Cause we get dizzy sometimes!" Did he need a demonstration? Dima volunteered!
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Uh How would you prove that? That was an excellent question Professor "Flail"-steed. Uh. Well. Uh. One does not just simply PROVE the Earth's spin. You just have to take their word for it right? Like the science people? "What if you put a bouncy ball on a flat surface and just left it there really still. And then it moved. Then you would know." Because that's totally how the Earth's spinny thing worked. Right? Right?
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How could you prove it without spaceships or meteorologists? Gwen supposed that without those things, it was entirely possible to believe, as people used to, that the Earth was stationary and everything else was moving around it.
Gwen raised her hand, laughing at the professor's antics. He really loved this stuff. "I don't think you really can prove it. I think that there could be a bunch of different explanations for why the stars move and the sun in the sky and the solstices and stuff." She wasn't making sense. She paused to organize her thoughts. "I mean, there's not really solid proof without things like pictures and maybe magic." Could magic somehow tell them the Earth was moving?
COULD MAGIC STOP THE EARTH FROM MOVING? The question struck her brain like lightning. She started to ask it, but stopped herself before any words were out. It wasn't really pertinent to the question. Gwen squirreled that question away for further exploration on her own time.
That was all that was coming from Ascanius' side of the room, yeah? While he could admit that the subject of Astronomy was interesting enough Flammy just mucked it up. With his talking. And his face.
So he remained silent.
Though, he had to admit, at least to himself, that he wasn't exactly sure how to go about proving the earth was spinning. He had the similar instinct like the rest of his classmates to assume about the stars or the sun; yet, that didn't prove a thing about the EARTH. It could have very well have been the stars and the sun that were moving and not Earth.
So he was stumped. Huh. Seventh year didn't know everything. Not that he'd ever say so. Or say anything. At all. Ever.
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Spinning? Helloooooooo! The sky moves all the time. WHY? Because it's spinning. Yes? Yes. He's going with that. "Um...Suuuunriiise...suuunnsett. Covers the answer, right?" Or is he thinking about revolving...no, that's the amount it takes to go around the sun, that's involving the seasons. Yep, he's more than sure he's on the right track.
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So close...sleep...sooo...
Oh another questions? Kyroh blinked and rubbed his eyes sleepily.
Hmmmmm.
The freckled boy stared at the professor. That was.....how could they? Kyroh was stumped. He had no clue how they would be able to tell how could they prove that the earth was spinning back in those days.
He really didn't....know.
And this was upsetting.
"Well if I was one of those Astronomers i'd say its true and I don't need proof 'cause I'm an Astronomer and you're not." So THERE. He'd have a title and everything so proof wasn't needed.
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Things were getting all out there and Beverly found herself taking more notes than she had been at the beginning of the lesson. Unfortunately, the summer had not fixed her struggle to fully understand Astronomy. Hey! She'd been out in the sun for most of the time so...it counted in her book as something.
Wrinkling her nose as she finished writing down the question, she opened her textbook and furiously searched for the answer or some sort of explanation. She did NOT like not knowing the answer to something. It frustrated her and got her moody. Although...she couldn't get moody at professor Airey. Heh. No.
Showed the boy barely learned anything from reading his brother's book. But at least he got the solstice part right. Anyway. Jun was staying quiet for the next question. Didn't Earth spinning create a gravitational pull? That's how you knew it was spinning? If it wasn't everything would be up in the air. Like floating and all. But hey, at least people were answering.
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Having been silent the entire class, Silas had no intentions of answering the last question that the professor had asked. Astronomy wasn't his forte, and that wasn't going to change. He did his best to pay attention and be respectful, and he tried to take the notes he thought might be important. But much of people's answers were the same, and so there was only so much to write while the Professor wasn't talking.
He looked over at a few of the faces he recognized as each student spoke. Mostly, he looked down at his desk. His... crooked... desk. Silas had tried to think up answers to the previous questions, but was always unsure about his answers, and so kept them to himself. Astronomy, again, was not the subject for him. It wasn't particularly boring, especially with Professor Airey. Not like Arithmancy. He just didn't do very well.
So when he had a revelation having to do with the rotation of the Earth that didn't focus on the stars, it struck him like a bag of hammers that he had a good answer, and the boy sat bolt upright in his seat and his hand flew up in excitement.
"U-uh," he started, despite his excitement. After all, there was a chance his answer could backfire horribly. "The different wind currents!" Um. No. That wasn't it, but that's what came out anyway; a prelude thought. "If you fire an object straight up into the air, even with no wind at all, it will never, ever, ever, come straight back down, because the Earth rotates, and in correlation to you standing still on the surface of the Earth, the object in the air will land differently from where it started."
He glanced over at the Ravenclaw girl he had met, Kanna, for no other reason than that he knew she was a Ravenclaw, and he was looking for a sign that his answer wasn't completely dumb. In any case, he was proud of it. Even if it was dumb. Or poorly phrased.
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Hmm. AJ was thinking that the chick that said the cloud moving thing was most likely right, but then again how do we know that it is true because sometimes we she laid out and tried to figure out cloud shapes they would practically zoom by and surely the earth is not moving THAT fast. Heh. She was silent on the last question and she was itching to answer even if it made no sense at all. The first year was a talker.
What could she say? What would even make the slightest bit of sense? AJ raised her hand. "I think it's because when you lie on your back sometimes and stare at the sky your eyes can't help but to move back and forth so that clearly means that the Earth is moving." Yup, that was a good as it was going to get from her.
Ana got distracted somewhat when she moved to try and find a more comfortable position, nearly taking a tumble off her chair but managing to keep her balance just in time, and so didn't really hear all of the Professors explanation. She was further distracted by the fact that she'd managed to knock her ink all over her parchment in her flail for balance. Sigh. Ana did hear his question though, but she wasn't really sure how she'd prove that the Earth rotated. If she was going off more modern times she'd definitely suggest using the Foucault Pendulum experiment. She'd done it a few times herself and although it wasn't a hard experiment it did prove the point rather nicely that Earth moved. The only other way she could think of maybe proving it was through sunset and sunrise, but people had already said that.
Deciding that she really couldn't add anything to the conversation at the moment Ana simply wrote her thoughts, and the thoughts of others down on a fresh piece of parchment that she'd gotten out of her bag.
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Oh goody! Adi was on the right track even though he hadn't quite gotten the answer. Heh. Well, it does pay off to make a bit of a gamble sometimes. He quickly made even more notes about solstices as Flamsteed spoke.
And now. How did they prove the Earth was spinning? Er...like the previous question, Adi was uncertain. But he did raise his hand to make an attempt. "The rising and setting of the Sun, maybe?''
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Cris thought long and hard on the next question the Professor had posed. When a fellow Hufflepuff mentioned a pendulum, Cris immediately recalled the one he had seen when he was a young boy visiting the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles, California. But then he thought of another possible way to prove the earth was spinning.
Raising his hand he gave his answer.
"Professor how about the Coriolis Effect? Doesn't it say that the effect is caused by the rotation of the Earth and the inertia of the mass experiencing the effect?" Cris paused to ask Professor Flamsteed.
"I remember reading an article that the effect was demonstrated in World War I when German soldiers discovered they needed to aim slightly to the left in order to hit their targets when shooting towards the south. I guess they found out that whenever fired, the cannonballs would somehow drift to the right. I guess that somehow showed proof that the earth was spinning."
"Now, I have one final question before we move on to the activity. We have discussed briefly how our ancestors, those ancient astronomers we are all decedents of, would look to the sky and theorize about just what is going on up there. I want you all to imagine you are one of these astronomers for a moment. How could you prove that the Earth is spinning? No spaceships allowed or meteorologists, obviously."
Huuuuuuuh. Though she was right about the dates being flexible, that hadn't boosted her confidence enough to feel good about this question. Sophie's hands dropped to her lap and she played with the sleeve of her robes, eyeing the professor and the students in the class who were taking a stab at answers. She wasn't really sure, honestly - the guess she thought was obvious was to look at the stars in the sky over time, but she wasn't sure if that was an actual way. How could the astronomers differentiate between whether the earth was spinning or if it was the distant stars and stuff moving around?
Mo's answer put into words her thought processes better than she could've verbalized it just yet, and she hoped he was right. He was a clever seventh year Ravenclaw, so he was probably pretty close, right? Sophie stayed silent and nodded once in agreement with his answer. It sounded logical and made plenty of sense to her, so she was rooting for his success.
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So, that was two questions sat out and Layla had to admit that it wasn't just the fact that everyone was falling all over each other to pretty much paraphrase each other's answers, though that certainly was part of it. Nope, she already had the dreaded senoritis, that thing that affects those in their last year of schooling that caused them to not be able to concentrate on their schoolwork. Sigh. But at least she'd been taking notes the whole time.
"The movement of the stars and constellations.....?" she spoke up finally, deciding that she wasn't just sitting there daydreaming. But honestly, she had her doubts that that was correct.
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Yes, finally she'd managed to answer a question in Flamsteed's class without mishap! Maybe Justine's bad luck was turning, she hope it was anyway. Hmm... This was a tricky question, mostly because the students had to think outside of their textbooks and really think creatively, thankfully that was one of Justine's strong suits.
How could they have known the earth was moving back then? Was possibly occurred in the night sky to prove that their little blue planet was turning on it's axis? Justine nibbled on her quill absentmindedly as she considered the tricky question... The cloud thing didn't make sense, it wasn't the earth moving that made clouds to by, but the wind... And she doubted it had anything to do with putting down a ball and watching it to see if it moved..
The stars didn't move though. They stayed exactly where they had always been and would continue to be until they one day exploded and formed black holes. There it was, there was the answer! "Sir! Zee constellations, zee stars do not move, yet zroogh out zee year, our ancestors vould 'ave noticed a difference in zee patterns of zee sky, and zat vould be zee vay to prove zee planet moved," Justine said, trying to bite back her triumphant smile as she spoke.
The girl was far too sure of herself, and didn't believe for a second that she could even remotely be wrong.
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His hand flew across his parchment as he scribbled down information on Solstices and he had just put in the last full stop when the Professor asked the next question.
Michael chewed on the end of his quill while he thought about the answer before finally raising his hand after a few moments. "I guess you could fire something...say a cannonball and if it doesn't fly straight then you know that the earth is spinning."Or something like that.
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Astronomy Lesson 1 :: Seasons & Solstices 
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