November 2019 Girl Scout Astronomy Event

Girl Scout Event November 2, 2019

What: Indoor presentation on telescopes and free apps you can install on your phone. The event also featured indoor and outdoor craft projects and a star party. Indoor crafts were coloring in sheets with images of the Moon, and preparing rockets to launch—soft Styrofoam “rockets” with rubber bands for “launching” outside. The students decorated the rockets with markers and attached plastic, decorated fins. Outside, the students filled in connect-the-dots drawings of constellations, and some drew rockets on the sidewalk.

Who: Girls ages kindergarten through 5^th grade, their parents, and BAS members. Girl Scouts in this age range, as well as girls not already members of Girl Scouts, were invited to participate.

Where: Girl Scout venue at 511 E. 11^th St. in Bartlesville

When: Nov. 2, 2019, 6-8 p.m.

Who coordinated: Rick Buck coordinated this event with Andrea Bunt, Membership Support manager of the Girl Scouts. He also made the presentation on telescopes and phone apps.

Publicity used: An email was sent on the Monday of the week of the event by Derek, on behalf of Rick Buck, asking for volunteers and telescopes. (This event came up after the October BAS meeting.) Rick sent another email on the Friday night before the event to announce a change in venue from Camp Wah-Shah-She to the in-town Girl Scout location. The Girl Scouts also made their own flyer for the event, which was posted in Bartlesville public schools.

Number of people who attended: 30 people, including 13 youth, 12 parents, Andrea, and four BAS members.

Number telescopes used: Two, with astrophotography.

Other materials brought: Rick Buck and Rick Bryant each brought a telescope. We handed out a few BAS business cards, November star charts and annual meteor shower chart. We also had small hand-held binoculars but didn’t use them.

Materials of location site used: The Girl Scouts provided the venue as well as brownies, moon pies, candies and punch.

BAS expenditures: None

What we observed: Moon, Jupiter with four moons, Saturn, Dumbbell Nebula

Comments: Cold but clear! This event was held at the in-town location partly because the Girl Scouts were using this event as an opportunity to involve more girls in scouting. We weren’t aware until the evening before the event that the age range of invited students was kindergarten through 5^th grade; we had thought it would be an older age range. We would have brought more telescopes for an older age range, and actually wished we had brought the Club’s 10-inch Dobsonian. About half the students who attended were above age 7; all of the students who attended were interested and engaged in the evening’s activities.