At peak magnitude, seek out the goddess of love planet in a clear blue sky in the west-southwest during daylight hours, being extremely careful to keep eyes diverted from the sun.
“Each time I fought for something I believed in, and won, I believed I could do it again.”
-- U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, addressing the Berkshire Community College graduating class
Nearly a decade of rocketing at up to 47,000 miles an hour, the New Horizons spacecraft, the fastest object to leave Earth, is approaching Pluto, to arrive at closest range on July 14. In the days before, during and after closest approach New Horizons will conduct a schedule of phenomenal, marathon-paced research initiatives.
Chris Thompson, the Technology Coordinator for SBRSD, points out that a 21st century learning environment is imperative to students being able to compete on both a national and global scale. He notes that due to the ever-present nature of digital content, access to it must be easy and seamless with student access at school equally as important as student access at home.
To participate virtually in the progress of NASA’s historic New Horizons flyby mission to Pluto — which is scheduled to arrive at the icy world on July 14 — download Simulation Curriculum’s free interactive exploration app, Pluto Safari for iOS and Android.
“We worked closely with Neel Weber at the High School who coordinated efforts with the other art teachers at Muddy Brook, Monument Valley and Monument Mountain so that we could celebrate youth art work throughout downtown Great Barrington during this construction period on Main Street."
-- Beryl Jolly, Executive Director of the Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center
I am eager to locate Mercury as soon as it is physically possible for the eye to see it as daylight fades into twilight. It is said that the Greeks tested their eyesight in this way.
Although one team had expressed interest in having us join them, this did not materialize and so our Cinderella run in St. Louis came to an end this morning. In what seemed a reversal of the way things generally go, the kids took the result with more equanimity than the adults, including me.
The big story is how well we did against much larger schools who were better financed. In fact, Mt Everett finished ahead of every other school in New England. A great achievement.
FIRST Tech competitions, known as “Varsity Sport for the Mind,” requires teams to build a robot from scratch quickly and within a framework of uniform size and task criteria, but without directions.
Launched aboard the space shuttle Discovery on April 24, 1990, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), which is described as “the most successful and celebrated scientific instrument ever built.”
Statistic after disheartening statistic, and life after unlucky life, point to the same conclusion: For millions of kids, there is now very little hope of reaching the middle class. Many of "Our Kids" revelations will not be news to anyone whose daily work — emergency room nurses, public defenders, teachers — brings them into contact with the full range of Berkshire County’s economic diversity.
The upcoming lunar eclipse could be a brief experience of the divine. In the Berkshires, it will be a fleeting partial eclipse on Saturday morning April 4th, minutes before the sun rises in the east and the full moon sets in the west, with Earth in between.
In the regional finals, the Mt. Everett team, Team 3085 Higgs Bots, performed well enough to qualify for the World Championship in St. Louis for the first time.
Human curiosity about everything astronomical is in full bloom each spring at the Northeast Astronomy Forum (NEAF), a phenomenal astronomy, space and telescope event that takes place this year April 18 and 19 at Rockland Community College in Suffern, N.Y.
In the coming weeks, look for a series of blogs from me flagged with the words "Heads Up." The implicit warning is intentional. Heads Up! Something scary and hopeful and altogether amazing this way comes, something you never imagined would really happen, which will make you read science fiction with new respect. And it's all about seeing.
“Poetry has solidified for me the importance of art in my life. It's easy for me to discount my propensity for drama as a hobby, but this is my passion. Sharing emotion with people is probably what I love to do most, and I think this experience has reinforced that I should be doing precisely that.”
-- Caroline Sprague, state champion in the Poetry Out Loud competition
