The Goal of the Noon Day Project http://ciese.org/curriculum/noonday/ is to have students measure the circumference of the earth using a method that was first used by Eratosthenes over 2000 years ago.
Students at various sites around the world will measure shadows cast by a meter stick and compare their results.
From this data students will be able to calculate the circumference of the
earth. Click here to get to their site and register.http://ciese.org/curriculum/noonday/
Watch the Carl Sagan video, http://youtu.be/0JHEqBLG650 its a treat.
Thanks to Ihor Charischak for pointing this out.
Stephen
But consider a flat Earth and a low small sun directly over the well. This will yield exactly Eratosthenes' result. The key here, which I've never seen mentioned in any books for children, is that the Greeks had to have a very good set of reasons for thinking the Earth round and the sun large enough and far enough away (and they did).
I gave a talk on how they did this in the Kyoto Prize lecture followups in San Diego in 2005. Aristarchus was one of several key figures.
The shame of it is that for both math and science learning, the important heuristic of trying to identify all the possible cases for a result is never encountered by the children (or most adults) who have read about Eratosthenes.
Cheers,
Alan
From: Steve Thomas sthomas1@gosargon.com To: naturalmath@googlegroups.com; iaep iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org; squeakland squeakland@squeakland.org Sent: Wednesday, September 28, 2011 9:06 PM Subject: [NaturalMath] KIds from around the world measuring the Circumference of the Earth
The Goal of the Noon Day Project is to have students measure the circumference of the earth using a method that was first used by Eratosthenes over 2000 years ago. Students at various sites around the world will measure shadows cast by a meter stick and compare their results. From this data students will be able to calculate the circumference of the earth. Click here to get to their site and register.
Watch the Carl Sagan video, its a treat.
Thanks to Ihor Charischak for pointing this out.
Stephen -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NaturalMath" group. To post to this group, send email to naturalmath@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to naturalmath+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/naturalmath?hl=en.
Here is a link to Alan's talk, his reference to Eratostenes starts at around 51:50.
Alan, do you still have a copy of the presentation?
Stephen
On Thu, Sep 29, 2011 at 12:18 AM, Alan Kay alan.nemo@yahoo.com wrote:
But consider a flat Earth and a low small sun directly over the well. This will yield exactly Eratosthenes' result. The key here, which I've never seen mentioned in any books for children, is that the Greeks had to have a very good set of reasons for thinking the Earth round and the sun large enough and far enough away (and they did).
I gave a talk on how they did this in the Kyoto Prize lecture followups in San Diego in 2005. Aristarchus was one of several key figures.
The shame of it is that for both math and science learning, the important heuristic of trying to identify all the possible cases for a result is never encountered by the children (or most adults) who have read about Eratosthenes.
Cheers,
Alan
*From:* Steve Thomas sthomas1@gosargon.com *To:* naturalmath@googlegroups.com; iaep iaep@lists.sugarlabs.org; squeakland squeakland@squeakland.org *Sent:* Wednesday, September 28, 2011 9:06 PM *Subject:* [NaturalMath] KIds from around the world measuring the Circumference of the Earth
The Goal of the Noon Day Project http://ciese.org/curriculum/noonday/ is to have students measure the circumference of the earth using a method that was first used by Eratosthenes over 2000 years ago. Students at various sites around the world will measure shadows cast by a meter stick and compare their results. From this data students will be able to calculate the circumference of the earth. Click here to get to their site and register.http://ciese.org/curriculum/noonday/
Watch the Carl Sagan video, http://youtu.be/0JHEqBLG650 its a treat.
Thanks to Ihor Charischak for pointing this out.
Stephen
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "NaturalMath" group. To post to this group, send email to naturalmath@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to naturalmath+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/naturalmath?hl=en.
IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!) IAEP@lists.sugarlabs.org http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
On Thursday 29 Sep 2011 9:48:55 AM Alan Kay wrote:
But consider a flat Earth and a low small sun directly over the well. This will yield exactly Eratosthenes' result. The key here, which I've never seen mentioned in any books for children, is that the Greeks had to have a very good set of reasons for thinking the Earth round and the sun large enough and far enough away (and they did).
I believe the motivation for celestial measurements goes much farther into history to the beginnings of agriculture in Asia. Rice was the staple diet in this region but it is a water-intensive crop. Farmers were dependent on Monsoon rains. A single harvest was sufficient to feed the population for an entire year. But sowing even a week earlier or later could spell doom. So people started tracking movements of celestial objects like Sun and Moon to forecast the arrival of rains. This history is carried in many words in Indian languages - Varsha (rains, year), Maasa (moon, month) and so on.
Tracing such connections over the millenia will be a lot more interesting than just using shadows to measure Earth's circumference. Without a framework, this exercise may just be performed, recorded and forgotten. It may not motivate students to ponder deeply on "why?".
Regards .. Subbu
squeakland@lists.squeakfoundation.org
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Alan Kay -
K. K. Subramaniam -
Steve Thomas