Day 2 

Monday 16 June 2014

Monday started off with some Q&A related to space, and then the campers performed their skits explaining why their group needs/wants to leave Earth, setting the stage for the camp theme "Journey to the Stars".  Another morning activity involved building their own spectroscopes that they used to identify the chemical composition of of various gas lamps, just like astronomers use spectroscopes to identify the atoms and molecules that permeate space.  We learned how to measure distances using just a ruler, your arm, your fist, and your pinky.  Astronomers use "parallax", or the apparent change in the position of an object when the observer moves, to measure distances to the nearest stars.   Before lunch we also discussed healthy eating habits, both on campus and during a long interstellar voyage. Did you know that a breakfast consisting of two servings of fruity cheerios, two pop tarts, a 20 oz. Gatorade, and a zebra cake is equivalent to 30 sugar cubes!?  After lunch the campers learned about optics and used that information to build hand-held telescopes that can be taken home.  We explored the different sizes in the Solar System and then re-created our own during a walk from one end of campus to the other.  The day was capped off with a tour of the night sky inside a planetarium and then doing the real thing with our fleet of 8-inch telescopes that the campers helped assemble.