Legacy Magazine

By Jon Kohl

Image by Dimitri Castrique / community.electricsheep.org.

From within our field, we might entertain the thought that interpretation changes and evolves according to actions of our own thinkers and programs, independent of the trajectories by which other fields such as environmental education, forestry, sociology, or even hair design might travel. But a momentary step outside our box might reveal that all society evolves in a larger sweep, a giant historical track that guides the future.

To glimpse this requires that we become conscious of the universal dimension of evolution, way beyond that of Darwin. Then, we can understand from whence interpretation has come and to where it marches. And, hopefully, we can help it arrive as soon as possible.

Universal Evolution Is Accelerating
Evolution did not start with Darwin’s theory of natural selection. Evolution began with a bang. The Big Bang unleashed galactic evolution. At first only hydrogen atoms populated infant space, but from its simplest atom evolved helium, lithium, beryllium, and on down the periodic table. Atoms clumped into clouds, then stars, then solar systems and galaxies, each time more complex than the time before.

After billions of years on our planet, the rocks cooled, sedimented, heated, and metamorphosed into tectonic plates, digging canyons, building mountain ranges, and creating ever more species of minerals.

After millions of years, the first prokaryotic unicellular organisms bubbled into existence among organic-chemical soups. Then came multicellular organisms, which grew larger and more complex, able to react to more stimuli in more interesting ways. Then proto-hominids evolved to the first self-conscious organisms on the planet.

After hundreds of thousands of years, many different cultures emerged. Then civilization.

After hundreds of years technologies evolved ever more rapidly.

With each passing scale, the universe grows more complex and conscious.

Human Consciousness Is Going Somewhere
If consciousness is an organism’s ability to perceive and react to ever more kinds of stimuli, then clearly from the earliest most archaic bacteria to humans, a lot of consciousness has evolved. But now in our modern age, our egocentric consciousness asks if evolution has stopped with people—if the natural driving forces that drove speciation for a couple billion years no longer applies to the pinnacle species that can short-circuit disease and hunger, and live under any condition. It’s a tempting thought since in the 10,000 years of human civilization, our bodies, even our brain mass, have not physically evolved in any substantial way.

Yet our brain power, our processing speed, and our ability to conceptualize and identify patterns and categories have increased by orders of magnitude. Powers beyond our ancestors’ imagination have emerged from within our skulls without any material change in that same skull. Development psychologists, such as Jean Piaget, have known for a long time that human cognitive, emotional, and other strictly interior capacities expand as we mature. These psychologists warn that no one gets to skip development levels, even if we move at different paces and attain different endpoints.

A newer kind of developmental psychologist now studies the evolution of consciousness both in individuals—adults are clearly more conscious than infants—and in cultures and societies. Consciousness, like everything else in the universe, evolves and becomes more complex. After many years, researchers and philosophers have mapped the levels of consciousness that humanity has experienced.

Archaic: This early consciousness corresponds to pre-culture hominids with the basic instinct of survival. Today this level can only be found in infants or adults who have regressed due to severe cerebral injury or illness.

Tribal: With the evolution of true culture, the life conditions of hunter-gatherers was a world controlled by animistic spirits who exercise power over humans. Fear and mystery envelop tribal folks whose most successful survival strategy has been to group together into tribes where everyone does all they can to support the group. Following rites and rituals to appease the spirits, this form of existence has succeeded for thousands of years. But eventually some began to reject the complete submission of individuality to the group and express individual motivation and expression.

Warrior: In this level of consciousness warriors excel based on their own strength and intelligence. They take what they can and lead through power. Through personal initiative and expression, the warrior consciousness, manifested in the likes of the Mongols, Vikings, and barbarians, survived successfully for many centuries and still exists today in certain parts of the world.

Traditional: In time some rejected the chaos and violence of the warrior mentality and from them evolved the traditional consciousness or worldview. Such cultures have a definitive code of law, usually revealed from a higher power that none of its followers can question. The code allows much greater order and organization capable of defeating warrior cultures and ushered in civilization, division of labor, great works of art and architecture, and also great ethnocentricity to any outside the “correct” way of living.

Modernist nature interpreters focus only on nature and science, preferring to avoid cultural, social, and ethical issues of concern for postmodern interpretation. By Jon Kohl.

Modernists: Starting in the Enlightenment, people began to reject the traditionalist requirement of accepting the code based on faith and submitting to the hierarchy that mediated communication with the gods. The modernists instead wanted to progress based on personal merit, thought, rationality, and ability. They created science and believed deeply in power of the mind and the individual’s right to exercise that power and enjoy its benefits. The modernists created democracy, capitalism, and professional bureaucracies, but in the process of promoting individual rights and merits, anyone not strong enough or smart enough or powerful enough fell by the wayside. Their materialist approach stripped away anything that could not be measured by science, such as morality and spirituality, leaving minority groups and the environment to suffer at the bloody hands of progress.

Post-modernists: Since the 1960s this new consciousness has emerged to challenge the waste, exclusion, materialism, individualism, and environmental destruction of modernism. The post-modernists promoted inclusion and every cause they could think of whether environmentalism, human rights, peace, green living, back-to-earth, organic, etc. Yet despite their achievements, the world still worsens. Post-modernists apply value relativism to all situations and while they claim to be open-minded and tolerant they despise the abuses of traditionalists and modernists.

Integralists: Starting in the 1980s a few people disenchanted with the worsening conditions of the world and the ongoing culture wars between traditionalists, modernists, and post-modernists came to realize that in fact there exist multiple levels of consciousness coexisting simultaneously and depending on different sets of life conditions. They realize that individuals and groups evolve along a developmental course that brings them through these levels and ultimately all problems have a large consciousness component. This is the first level to realize that different kinds of consciousness and different values exist, none being the one right way, and each contributing something positive and negative to overall human consciousness on Earth.

Integral Theory, then, embodies this new worldview and even anticipates new post-integral worldviews to come.

Paradigm of Interpretation Goes with the Worldview Flow
Every worldview embodies a forest of paradigms, where each paradigm explains how some aspect, technology, belief system, or field works. Paradigms can pass between worldviews but evolve when they do so. For example, environmental education, adaptive management, and interpretation all were born in modernism with their principal paradigm and corresponding rules and beliefs.

Modernists created all three fields as a response to mounting damage from modernism’s own exploits. Both Enos Mills and Freeman Tilden worked in the modernism era and expressed values of trying to rectify damages to nature and national parks. With the arrival of post-modernism in the 1960s these fields began to take on post-modern ideas. Modernism had left people without meaning by stripping spirituality, community, and sacred spaces from common thought. This presented a big opportunity for interpreters who could help to instill or re-instill the notion of place, rather than just a material, utilitarian, modernist space. Interpreters could integrate multiple forms of knowing rather than just science, modernism’s sole source of legitimate knowledge. Some interpreters adopted the idea that meanings are relative to the meaning-makers rather than inherent in places, a modernist idea.

Even today, interpretation (and most other fields in society) suffers from being caught between worldviews. Many modernist interpreters, for example, focus only on science and nature interpretation and leave out social systems when interpreting environmental and conservation problems. These same interpreters employ anthropocentric universal themes (where the definition of a universal theme is one that all people, regardless of culture can relate to). Post-modern interpreters, on the other hand, have thrown themselves full into integrating indigenous messages, underground railroad, and stories of other erstwhile-ignored or suppressed minority points of view, or themes that take up causes the world over, and not just particular sites.

Integral Interpreters Focus on Evolving Consciousness and Global Crisis
To be an integral interpreter requires an even broader consciousness, to embrace universal themes that do not refer only to universal human experiences but themes about the entire universe. For integralists, evolution becomes the highest value and deepest source of interpretive themes. Understanding evolution, integralists see the directionality of greater complexity and greater consciousness. This direction gives purpose to evolution, to the universe, and all creation, much more enriching than the modernist claim that life is simply the result of random and purposeless natural selection. It integrates spirituality into interpretation, a forbidden topic in the modernist world. Evolution ties together interpretation about all other systems, whether shipbuilding or forest history or the Civil War or the Crab Nebula. Integralists integrate the modern science with post-modern spirituality. They interpret how different life conditions give rise to different worldviews, and they understand and interpret that all problems in the world have a large consciousness component. Integral interpreters, because of the gloomy life conditions in which we live today, understand that they need to interpret problems and solutions to audiences with different worldviews within the context of values relevant to each worldview. This integrates an entirely new aspect to understanding one’s audience.

Integralists, by their more holistic nature, don’t just interpret geographically bounded heritage places (and they don’t use the modernist term “resources” anymore), but the heritage’s place in the evolving universe.

Conclusion
With climate change, pandemics, peak oil, and food shortages, the life conditions—especially of Westerners in the 2000s—grow increasingly obvious and urgent. We need interpreters to look beyond the 19th-century modernist concept of protected areas and identify with a larger consciousness, at least worldcentric, if not beyond. Interpreters, to be truly relevant in this century, can’t simply hide in local sites, but must participate in helping solve problems based in consciousness. This age, though with dire challenges afoot, presents the most glorious moment in history for interpreters, but first we must evolve beyond Darwin.

Jon Kohl is a writer, interpreter, eco-village builder, and long-term consultant with UNESCO’s World Heritage Center. Visit him at www.jonkohl.com.

The space shuttle Endeavour and the International Space Station rise from the northwest horizon, as seen from New York City on February 21, 2010. Courtesy Jim Cook.

By Rhana Smout Paris

Do you know what phase the moon is in right now? Can you find the North Star? Pick out a constellation and tell me a story about its creation.

If you can do any of the above, you are in the minority in America. There was a time when knowing the night sky meant knowing when best to plant your next crop, finding your way home on the open sea, or giving a frightened child a comforting connection to the dark night. Nowadays, most people tend to rush from one lighted spot to the next. Few of us stop to look at the night sky, much less stay outside long enough for our eyes to adjust to the dark.

And yet, astronomy programs are popular with interpreters and visitors alike—why? How can you create an astronomy program that follows a proper interpretive approach when the subject is inherently intangible to most people?

While it was by no means a thorough survey, I had a chance to ask a couple of fellow interpreters why they did astronomy programs. Each was excited and specific about what they and their participants got from the experience. John Fullwood said that astronomy programs were “rewarding personally because visitors came to learn and enjoy the night sky.” Saiward Turnbaugh spoke about the mind-boggling nature of black holes and how they can be hard to grasp. She likes how astronomy discussions open up other questions. While talking with James Wooten, he became animated in his description of some of his favorite star activities, relating how he likes to give the kids time to create their own constellations on butcher paper, complete with their own star stories.

Jim Cook, a volunteer interpreter who provides his personal telescope for others to use, perhaps said it best: “Suddenly I had been given the power to show people the moon and Saturn. And so wherever I went, I did.” He goes on, “Obviously, I would show people other objects, too, but the moon, and especially Saturn, have always been in a class by themselves. My reward was simply hearing people say, usually in a rather hushed voice, ‘Oh…my…God.’ Or, in the case of younger kids, it’s often an excited, ‘I see it! I see it!’ It’s a very special feeling to be able to evoke such expressions from people.”

From a visitor’s perspective, where else but the night sky can you easily experience such grandeur? It is almost as if the human body is built for looking up at and being amazed by the night sky—when we tilt our head back, the jaw automatically drops open so we might utter one syllable: “Wow!” Sure, you can get the same effect at lots of amazing places—standing near the ocean or at the rim of the Grand Canyon—but not everyone can travel to such sites. The night sky and its light show are free to anyone who goes to their backyard, roof top, or local park. Folks just need someone to teach them how to get around the universe!

The scattering of stars across the dome of the sky can look random to the untrained eye. I am often asked whether people long ago had better imaginations or were smoking something to create anything from such a mess. Tell a compelling, universally understood story about love and jealously or foolishness and redemption, and the stars’ patterns that make the constellations become more clear and the stories memorable. I can’t think of a culture that doesn’t have at least one story to explain how constellations came to be. Often they represent a who’s who of the heroes and villains of a local people and provide the storyteller with a reminder of the important moral stories to be passed on to the next generation—a kind of mnemonics in the sky.

One of my favorite stories requires the audience’s help to tell it properly. It is the Greek story of Cassiopeia, Andromeda, Perseus, Pegasus, and Cetus. These constellations are found near the North Star and most are visible throughout most of the year. Each character has an associated sound, which the audience utters in unison when that character’s name is said over the course of the story. Cassiopeia warrants a hiss for being conceited, Andromeda gets a girlish sigh, and so on. Start telling that story to a squirmy group of school kids and you get instant attention. The message is passed on—bad behavior begets punishment—and the constellations are learned.

The themes an astronomy program could follow are as numerous as the stars themselves. The vocabulary can be equally dense—from zenith to nadir, declination to right ascension, or Messier objects to black holes, to name a few. I will often move from the moon to the planets to deeper space to establish an organized flow for a general astronomy program. Other times I will focus only on the moon or only on that season’s constellation stories. Find the topic that suits you best and bootstrap common ideas and items to help your participants grasp the vastness of space.

The constellations Orion and Taurus battle over Black Hill Regional Park’s Lake Seneca, in Boyds, Maryland. Photo by Jim Cook.

Such programs don’t require much investment in equipment to be successful. They can be as basic as walking outside and looking up or as involved as coordinating with a local astronomy club that, in all likelihood, is more than happy to share its telescopes and knowledge with your group. Star charts are easy to obtain and will work for most places in North America—the stories you tell at a campfire on the East Coast will serve the visitors well when they return to the West.

Shake out your hands! Now you have a handy tool for measuring distances in space, which is measured in degrees. With your arm outstretched, the width of your little finger is about one degree, your fist is 10 degrees across, and the distance between the tips of your little finger and your thumb, when your hand is stretched out like the American Sign Language symbol for the letter Y, is 25 degrees. It doesn’t matter if you are a star basketball player or a little kindergartner—these widths of fingers and hands hold when found at the end of an arm that is proportionately long.

This measurement sleight of hand comes in “handy” when describing where one celestial object is in relation to another. Look for the Big Dipper—it is the constellation that looks like a side-view of a saucepan in the northern part of the night sky. The depth of the “saucepan” is about five degrees and its opening is about 10 degrees across. Want to find the North Star? Extend the front edge of the “saucepan” up about 28 degrees and you have Polaris.

Use this hand measurement trick the next time you see the full moon rising in the east. Put your little finger next to the moon. What, at first, appears to measure about two inches wide will appear to shrink in size to be, in actuality, less than one degree wide. Other knowledge about the moon is equally transferable to anywhere on Earth. There is something comforting about seeing the moon where I am and knowing that wherever my loved ones are on Earth, they are seeing the same moon in the same phase, whenever their nighttime happens to come. As the refrain of the old lullaby goes, “I see the moon, and the moon sees me, and the moon sees the one that I long to see.” This concept of family and longing is universally understood.

Distances, sizes, and speeds are perhaps the most daunting subjects to make understandable to the general public. The distance to the nearest star, the sizes of the planets, and the speed the galaxy is traveling are all measured in numbers that make the national deficit look small. Using relative sizes and distances can help make these numbers more manageable and relevant to visitors.

For instance, if we were to travel to Proxima Centauri, the nearest star to us within our Milky Way galaxy, it would be like an ant working his way across America. A lot can happen to an ant on such a journey! Here is another analogy: If the sun is the size of a ping pong ball, Sirius, the brightest star to us, would be the size of a tennis ball. How far would I need to throw the tennis ball in order to keep the relative distance between these two stars in proportion to their new sizes? Across the room? Across the street? Try 1,000 miles away—from my location in North Carolina, that would be like throwing the tennis ball all the way to New Orleans. Say I wanted to travel to the sun. At 93 million miles away, that is no small distance, but what does 93 million miles mean to a kid? Let’s use transportation that is available to the common man. I have a couple of options. I could save money and drive to the sun—a car travelling 55 miles an hour would take 193 years to make the trip one way. Don’t want to spend that much time behind the wheel? A 747 airplane, at a rate of 600 miles an hour, would take 17 years. And then you have to come back to Earth—talk about a road trip!

Justifying the purpose of an astronomy program might seem out of reach. Save for planetariums, what facility or park truly deals with objects and phenomena so far removed from daily existence? For general knowledge, perhaps—point out the North Star in a campfire program and you might help a scout find his way back to camp. But who really needs to know astronomy?

A park ranger once questioned inventor John Dobson about the appropriateness of bringing telescopes to a public park. Dobson devised the mount that allows amateurs to build their own telescopes from common items and inspired the Sidewalk Astronomers, a volunteer group that conducts impromptu star programs on the streets of San Francisco. “The sky is not part of the park,” the ranger was reported to have said. Dobson replied, “No, but the park is part of the sky.”

We might not need to know the phase of the moon to plant our backyard tomatoes. More than likely, our GPS will get us back to port. And you can plug in a nightlight if your child is scared of the dark. Still, I think having a relationship with the night sky is something primal and universal. Carl Sagan once said that we are made of star dust. Science backs this up. So maybe the stars are not so much “out there” and removed from our everyday lives. We, like Dobson’s park, are part of the stars.

So take a break from the artificial lights of our modern existence and take a walk outside some star-filled night. Let your eyes adjust. Allow your head to flop back and your jaw to drop open. All together now: “Wow….”

For More Information
Ham, Sam H. (1992.) Environmental Interpretation: A Practical Guide for People with Big Ideas and Small Budgets. Golden, CO: North American Press.

Moser, Don. (2005.) 35 Who Made a Difference: John Dobson. Retrieved March 1, 2010, from www.Smithsonian.com.

Rhana Smout Paris is a long-time interpreter and frequent presenter at NAI National Workshops. She is the outreach coordinator at the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island. The author thanks Jim Cook, John Fullwood, Saiward Turnbaugh, and James Wooten for their feedback.

By Lisa Coalwell

Standing alone in the dark, I could easily feel overwhelmed by the vast, velvet-black night sky. It is, after all, endless. It’s filled with more galaxies and nebulae and black holes than my mind can comprehend. The starlight I see tonight began its journey before I was born. The closest star, other than our own sun, lies not within reach of even an entire lifetime of travel.

Photo by Dan Laszlo

Yet, that same sky seems as familiar to me as my own backyard. I look up and see the same stars I saw last night, ones I will see again tomorrow night (clouds not withstanding). I know the phase of the moon and how it changes slightly each night. In the midst of a million stars, I can pick out constellations like old friends in a crowd—the Big Dipper, Cassiopeia, Leo the Lion.

I did not come to this understanding by myself. I was guided there by a group of dedicated amateur astronomers known collectively as the Northern Colorado Astronomical Society.

Accessing the Universe
The Northern Colorado Astronomical Society (NCAS) is just one of many organizations across the country dedicated to helping those of the lay public better understand that vast natural resource we call our universe.

The local group may be small in number, with about 40 regular members, but it’s powerful in its reach, hosting two or more public stargazing opportunities each month, from events at area schools to backcountry star watches at Rocky Mountain National Park.

“Amateur astronomy clubs provide easy ‘access’ to the universe,” said Greg Halac, outreach coordinator and Web editor for the NCAS. Halac, an engineer who lives in Fort Collins, Colorado, is one of about a dozen club volunteers who set up amazingly large and complex telescopes for public stargazing events in museum parking lots, school playgrounds, and high mountain meadows.

“Trying to start out in astronomy on your own will inevitably lead to frustration and wasted money, and discourage people who really are interested in the subject,” Halac explained.

He’s been there.

“My wife gave me an eight-inch telescope, and I had only used it under the light-polluted skies of Fort Collins,” he explained. “I joined a friend for ‘Weekend Under the Stars’ in Foxpark, Wyoming, in 2002 and was awestruck by the gorgeously dark skies.” At that event, Halac took what he calls a “lucky” photo that ended up on the NCAS website, and joined the club at its next meeting.

Halac now uses two large and powerful telescopes (a 17.5-inch Dobsonian and an eight-inch Celestron Schmidt-Cassegrain), as well as a Coronado Personal Solar Telescope, in his volunteer work with the NCAS.

“It is incredibly rewarding to see and hear the reaction of both kids and adults the first time they look through a good telescope,” said Halac. “To most people, seeing the object live is a truly memorable experience…. It is a completely different experience than looking at a photo.”

That “live” experience can lead to a deeper understanding of not only space, but our own Earth, said Jon Caldwell, NCAS treasurer. He believes it is the club’s role “to raise the public’s awareness about what’s out there, so they can appreciate more what’s here on Earth.”

“We should understand the universe better so we can realize how isolated we are in it,” he explained. “This Earth is all we’ve got.”

NCAS vice president Dan Laszlo agreed. “We have such a comfortable little planet,” said the Fort Collins allergy physician. “Looking beyond it is tremendously enriching in terms of the extremes that are out there—the distances, the temperature, the time scale, the cosmic speed limit of light speed.”

Robert Michael, the club’s president, sees a need for amateur astronomers to reach out to the public not just to share a passion, but to help people see the bigger picture.

Dan Laszlo shares his knowledge of the night skies during an early March astronomy night at Big Thompson Elementary School in Loveland, Colorado. Photo by Julie Patton.

He cited a quote from Raymond Alf, a well-known paleontologist and teacher at the Webb School of California, a preparatory school Michael attended in Claremont as a high schooler.

“This quote is as fresh today as it was 50 years ago when I first heard it,” said Michael. “Raymond Alf said, ‘Our view of the human scene becomes narrow, unillumined, and passionate if we do not rise above its immediate urgencies and see it in its cosmic roots and background.’”

To explain those “cosmic roots,” club members work “to convey both extremes of the obvious and the subtle,” said Laszlo. He’s direct with a child: “Yes, you are seeing spiral arms of a galaxy and it has a black hole in the center,” while he’ll prompt an adult with a question: “Isn’t it amazing how tortured the moon looks?”

Reaching Back to Reach Out
One of the reasons NCAS members say they can relate so well to all ages is that they remember how their own interests began, long ago.

“I was a child of the space age and remember arguing with my kindergarten teacher about a mission,” said Laszlo. “She was right that time.”

Later, his parents “gave in” and bought him a $200 telescope when he was in junior high in Cedar Springs, Michigan.

“I recall my first look at Saturn with that scope,” he said. Then, “I read every local library astronomy book and Sky and Telescope magazine for years…. I did lots of reading, because of the cloudy weeks, especially in winter.”

Like Laszlo, Michael also got hooked on astronomy early in life, as he grew up in Los Angeles. His parents took him to the nearby Griffith Observatory when he was about six years old.

“It blew my mind,” said Michael, a consulting geologist now living in Fort Collins. “I was interested in astronomy anyway, but that trip was the clincher.”

Caldwell’s passion for astronomy came not as much from the stars, but from the hardware. He began building his own stargazing equipment in eighth grade (“many, many years ago”) when he needed a science project, and found a book on making telescopes.

During starwatches, Caldwell, a retired mechanical engineer, now uses a 12.5-inch reflecting telescope with a mirror he made himself. His best moments, he said, are when “someone takes a look in the eyepiece and says, ‘Oh, wow!’”

“First-time viewers tend to gasp with the close-up view of the moon or Saturn,” Laszlo added. One of his most memorable moments, however, came as he helped a crowd observe a man-made object, rather than a natural one. He recalled an event that was to start after the landing of a Space Shuttle: “The landing was delayed, unknown to me. The crowd gave a ‘whoa’ as a bright little comet with a wispy white tail drifted almost overhead —it was the delayed shuttle, and a cloud from a water release—a really unearthly sight.”

From the Public’s Perspective
When Michigan resident Debi Rom and her family moved to Loveland, Colorado, they noticed that they were closer to the sky. “We could see the stars in different ways than in the Midwest,” she said.

Rom, an elementary-school faculty assistant, decided to attend one of the NCAS starwatches at an area open space during last winter’s holiday break for “something different to do.” Although the evening was bone-chilling cold, it was well worth it, said Rom.

“The people in that group are so eager to share their passion and the information they’ve gathered over the years,” she explained. “They were as willing to share information as they were to tote around those big telescopes; it’s not like they just show up with lawn chairs and start talking!”

Attorney-by-day and astronomer-by-night Robert Grover prepares his telescope for a public viewing at the Loveland school. Photo by Julie Patton.

They were so helpful, in fact, Rom said, that when she wished aloud that she’d dressed more appropriately for the weather that night, one of the members offered her a hat from his car. “They were so accommodating,” she explained. “I felt like I’d known them for a long time. I’m now planning on attending more of their events this summer.”

I, too, have benefited from the NCAS universe of knowledge. Both my own children and my students have attended stargazing events at my urging, all of them coming away chattering about what they’d experienced. My husband and I attended one of the Rocky Mountain National Park star parties a few summers ago, where we learned more about particular stars and certain constellations than I had in years of preparing astronomy lesson plans.

And, best of all, I received a phone call one day from Laszlo, who had worked with my students through night observations, asking if I had any special plans for the kids that day. Thinking of all the lesson plans I’d made, I asked him what he had in mind.

“The sunspot activity is amazing today,” he replied, offering to bring his solar scope to the school and introduce my team of more than 90 students to sun gazing. How could I say no? The sixth graders learned a lesson that day I could never have planned for them, and one that will stick with them for years.

So now, as I study the night sky and introduce it to an even younger generation of children in my new role as an elementary-school teacher, I thank those volunteers who help the rest of us make some sense of our universe.

Embracing the Universe
Now, for me and others touched by NCAS members, the night sky beckons, and we can appreciate its wonders: A thin crescent moon hanging above the horizon, grinning like Alice’s Cheshire Cat; the Milky Way, filled with unknown galaxies and deep-space objects, stretching across the sky like a billowy, colorless rainbow; Mars glowing red among the silver stars.

We take a break from our hectic lives, turn off the TV, and walk outside, welcoming the dark.

Constellations
“Be humble, for you are made of earth. Be noble, for you are made of stars.”
—Serbian Proverb

The constellations scattered around the night sky can connect us across time and space to ancestors who traced these patterns in the stars.

We can learn more about the Navajo tribe, for example, when we look at Cassiopeia and the Big Dipper. Those two star patterns are called “circumpolar” constellations—for people living in the northern latitudes, they seem to revolve around the North Star, and can be seen year-round.

The Navajo saw the Big Dipper as First Man, and Cassiopeia as First Woman. The two “walk” together around the Campfire of the North, a constellation that includes Polaris, the North Star. The Navajo believed this mix of constellations established a law of fidelity—one man, one woman, one home fire.

The stars also helped the Navajo regulate their hunting seasons. Near a constellation they called Long Sash (Orion to the Greeks), the Navajo saw a rabbit leaving four tracks behind it. This constellation becomes visible in late fall, and the open end of the rabbit’s tracks appear to point toward the earth. The Navajo believed this signaled the start of hunting season, which lasted until the constellation gradually moved across the sky, and “set” during the spring and early summer. The open ends of the tracks then appeared to point away from the earth, signaling mating season and the end of the hunt.

Information courtesy of the Star Lab Native American Mythology guide.

Astronomy Clubs
For more information on astronomy clubs in your area, go to:

Night Sky Network
The Astronomical League

Dr. Laszlo recommends two sites “for a daily taste of astronomy”:

Astronomy Picture of the Day
Space Weather

And, he added, for “a local clearinghouse for events and observing information,” turn to your local astronomy club website. For instance, the Northern Colorado Astronomical Society site address is www.ncastro.org.

Lisa Coalwell teaches at Big Thompson Elementary School in Loveland, Colorado. She served as an education ranger last summer in Rocky Mountain National Park through the Teacher-Ranger-Teacher program.

By Keliann Laconte

The Lunar and Planetary Institute is bringing the art of interpretation to science through nonpersonal media: images, text, exhibits, and stories. As you can probably guess from our name, we love the moon! Our education department brings the universal concepts of our origins, violent history, and pioneering explorations to life through the lenses of geology, astronomy, chemistry, and physics. Our goal is to provoke visitors into viewing the moon (and other planets) in new ways and reveal personal connections with a dominant feature of the sky that is a source for personal, cultural, and scientific inspiration worldwide. We invite you to bring a resource that we all share—our beautiful night sky and Earth’s own history—to your own communities through these resources, available for free on our website.

Interpretation makes a great tool for bringing the wonders of the universe to people who might not be in the habit of learning about science. The moon’s story is rich in universal concepts that everyone can relate to in their own unique ways. The moon’s birth occurred during a time more violent than any epic battle experienced by humans. When the solar system was still young, 4.5 billion years ago, debris littered the orbits of the earth and other planets and caused frequent collisions. A small, planet-sized object collided with the early earth and the ejected rubble, dust, and vapor from that collision coalesced into our moon. Dark circles remain etched on its surface from the continued violence of our early solar system, when comets and asteroids impacted the moon and—although the rock cycle has destroyed the evidence—Earth. The moon’s ancient rocks and cratered surface record its long, shared history with Earth. By understanding the moon, we piece together that ancient story of Earth’s infancy.

Every meal was a space picnic. Dehydrated bite-sized morsels and puréed foods were rehydrated with water and eaten.

The moon’s continued friendly presence in the sky is immortalized in cultural references. The fall full moon’s label of “Harvest Moon” recalls the moon’s helpful nighttime light. Cultural tales highlight different stages of the lunar cycle. The Apollo missions to the moon represent not only a patriotic triumph for the United States and a historical turning point for our world’s political landscape, but tell a tale of human survival in a hostile environment.

We develop the stories of the physics of the moon’s origins, chemical analyses of lunar rocks, and observations of the moon’s surface and changing phase under thematic statements that relate science to personal experience. We provide online interpretive albums, which are a product of the Lunar and Planetary Institute/Johnson Space Center team of the NASA Lunar Science Institute, at www.lpi.usra.edu/nlsi/education. Images are accompanied by interpretive text and links to download the files. Interpreters can create their own exhibits with high-resolution, poster-size images or print the lower-resolution files for educational and personal uses. The album “Camping Trip to the Moon” is intended to highlight the connections between a common recreational activity and a remarkable engineering and physiological feat: sending people to the moon and bringing them safely home. Our gallery of interpretive albums will continue to grow and explore topics such as lunar exploration and the moon’s formation and evolution, including “Treasure Hunt in Earth’s Attic.”

Are we there yet? It took a long trip—three days—in a cramped vehicle to get to the moon. Astronauts (from left to right) Armstrong, Collins, and Aldrin performed pre-flight checks.

Each of our growing collection of traveling exhibits consists of three pop-up panels that are available for institutions to borrow. They highlight the stories of the moon’s birth from catastrophe, the violent history that pockmarked its surface with impact craters to create the familiar patterns we see in its face, and the untold stories it holds for the next explorers. Place one of these small exhibits in an atrium, visitor center, or hallway and engage your visitors with related hands-on activities.

Bring science and culture to your campfire programs with our SkyTellers (listen to one free story or purchase the DVD at www.lpi.usra.edu/education/skytellers) and “World Tales of the Moon” (available for free at www.lpi.usra.edu/mymoon/?p=tales), collections of cultural stories recorded by professional storytellers. Adapt these products to your site’s unique resources, message, and audience!

Keliann LaConte is the education specialist with the Lunar and Planetary Institute. Reach her at laconte@lpi.usra.edu.

By Scott Mair

Photo by Charles Banville

It’s a crisp, clear night in Victoria, British Columbia. From the top of Observatory Hill the Milky Way streaks south across the sky towards Olympic National Park in Washington State. It’s like God has sprinkled a handful of diamonds against a black velvet night, as thousands of stars wink at me.

At moments like this, with star chart in hand, I used to try to figure out the constellations. Beyond the Big Dipper I was pretty much lost and I became convinced the Greek astronomers that named the constellations must have been heavy into the ouzo that night. I’m sorry: Ursa Major doesn’t look like a bear to me; it doesn’t matter how much my friend Don tries to describe where Boötes, the herdsman, is, I can’t make out its ice-cream cone shape; and Bernice’s Hair (Coma Berenices) may be a cool name for a constellation, but I can’t even see any stars in that part of the sky much less make out its shape.

Then I got a job running an astronomy interpretive center. There’s nothing like the fear of appearing stupid to focus the mind!

That’s when I discovered there are tricks to navigating the night sky. The first was: Find an anchor point. Most of the constellations might be unrecognizable, but a few are bright, distinctively shaped, and easy to find: the W shape of Cassiopeia, the distinctive belt of Orion, and the “big dipper” part of Ursa Major, for example.

The constellations that surround these anchor points may not be distinctive, but they always have at least one bright star. That is my second trick: Don’t worry about all the stars; just worry about the bright ones. If you follow the edge of the cup of the Big Dipper, the first bright star you come to is Polaris (the North Star), the brightest star in the Little Dipper, more properly known as Ursa Minor (the little bear). Once you have Polaris the rest of the Little Dipper is easy to pick out.

This photo of the Andromeda galaxy was taken by Charles Banville, an amateur photographer in Victoria, British Columbia.

Follow Orion’s belt up and the first bright star is Aldebaran, the brightest star in Taurus, the bull. Before you know it you’ve tracked your way from one constellation to the other right across the sky and your life will never be the same again!

Once you know the constellations you will always look up at the night sky. It won’t be a casual look like the “old you” used to make. You’ll make a point of seeing who’s up in the sky tonight. And the more you look, the more you’ll see.

You’ll begin to notice that the stars scroll across the sky each night, a telltale sign that the planet you’re standing on does indeed rotate. When you look through a telescope eyepiece and the object you are viewing tracks across the field of view, it’s not the object moving, you’re actually seeing the effect of the rotation of the earth.

As the constellations change with the seasons you’ll be able to visualize the orbit of the earth around the sun as we look into a new patch of outer space each night.

You’ll notice that the sun, the moon, and the planets don’t track randomly across the sky, they all follow the same path—the plane of our solar system—and that the Milky Way marks the plane of our galaxy.

When you notice that Venus and Mercury go through phases like the moon, but Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn don’t, you’ll grasp where our orbit fits into the solar system. Planets between the earth and the sun go through phases. Planets beyond our orbit don’t. If you were magically transported to a new solar system you could easily figure out where your new planet fit into its solar system.

When you can navigate the night sky and understand why it moves the way it does, your understanding of your physical place in the universe is no longer an amorphous, academic concept. Where you are on the earth, where the earth is in the solar system, what part of the galaxy we’re in, and who our neighbors are in this corner of the universe will become tangible and concrete. It’s a really cool feeling.

On that frosty night in Victoria, I want the people lining up to look through my telescope to begin to get that feeling, to grasp the wonder and beauty of the cosmos.

If we’re looking at the moon or Saturn, astronomy interpretation is easy. With those objects the resource speaks for itself. Sometimes I don’t even say anything. When the person looking through my telescope asks, “What are we looking at?” I just say, “You tell me.”

With the moon the response is immediate: Wow, cool, amazing! Or they don’t say anything, struck dumb by the beauty of it all.

With Saturn it sometimes takes them a while. “Well, it’s…. It’s…. Oh, oh, oh! It’s the one with the rings! It looks just like the picture.” And then they say, wow, cool, or amazing, or they’re struck dumb by the beauty of it all.

For most of the “deep-sky objects” I show the public (nebulae, galaxy, star clusters) it’s not quite so easy. The problem is they expect to see a Hubble Space Telescope picture and get a humble Scott telescope image instead. For me and my fellow amateur astronomers, doing “public outreach” (as the astronomy community calls interpretation) will be all about managing disappointment.

Luckily, I’m an interpreter! I know all about linking the tangible and the intangible. Freeman Tilden is my best friend and the social contract model of interpretation is tattooed on my rump.

I hope it helps because I’m going to try to convince the person looking through my telescope that the Andromeda galaxy (M31), the gray smudge they can barely see in the eyepiece, really is a galaxy with billions and billions of stars, millions and millions of light years away.

Before I even start though, I remember that I’m not just talking to the person looking through my telescope; I’m also talking to everyone in line. It’s never fun waiting, so I make my stories big and entertaining to reach them, too.

Although the stories I tell will vary with each person (I try to tailor my talk based on their questions or conversations I overhear), I prepare everyone for what they are going to see before they look through the eyepiece. I tell them they are going to be looking at an island universe of more that 500 billion stars, as much as a light-year across. I want their brains to fill in what their eyes can’t see. It’s not a gray smudge; it’s an island universe!

While they are looking I want them to appreciate how special this moment is. The light that is reaching their eyes right now started on its journey 2.5 million years ago—before there were even human beings on the earth. Ninety years ago we didn’t even know that other galaxies existed. They use to be called spiral nebulae (nebula is the Greek word for cloud) until Edwin Hubble was able to resolve individual stars in Andromeda with the 100-inch Hooker Telescope in California.

I want to tie them to the place we are observing from. Observatory Hill gets its name from the 72-inch Plaskett Telescope that towers above us. It was built in the same year as the Hooker. Even though the Hooker Telescope was finished first, the Plaskett’s design was so good it was up and running immediately, doing science for six months before the Hooker was completely operational. For six months, the Plaskett was the largest operating telescope in the world. (Hey, I’m Canadian—I take my glory where I can.)

I want to tie the cosmos to popular culture, too. The Milky Way is gravitationally tied to Andromeda. We’re part of a little gang of galaxies that travel through space gravitationally tied together. We have a really cool gang name—The Local Group. Wouldn’t that look good on the back of a jacket?

I also want to tie their own bodies to the observing experience. I remind them they will get a better view of Andromeda if they don’t look directly at it. Astronomers call this averted vision and it works because of the anatomy of our eyes. We have two kind of light receptors in our eyes: cones for color vision that require bright light to work and rods for low light that give us black and white vision. The cones are concentrated in the center of our eye. If we look directly at Andromeda the image falls on the cones, but there is so little light reaching our eyes from the galaxy it’s not enough to cause the cones to fire. If we look slightly off to the side the image falls on the rods, which can fire in low light. A black-and-white image is better than no image at all.

Most of all, I want them to have fun. I want them to have so much fun, they will want to do this again and again and again. I want them to know you don’t have to be a math genius, that telescopes are easy to use, and that astronomers may be kind of geeky, but they’re nice, too. I want them to know there is a wonderful show above our heads every night. They just have to tilt their heads back and enjoy.

Scott Mair came to Victoria, BC, as the founding director of the Centre of the Universe (how’s that for a job title?). He still does astronomy programming at the Swan Lake Nature Sanctuary, where he is the program manager.