Students will leave this course knowing more about the night sky than many adults.  We will learn a lot of constellations and where/how to find them, take a look at some of the different types of stars that we can see with our eyes, and talk about some of the wild stories of renaissance astronomy.  

This course is fast paced!
I've presented the components of this camp (in person and virtually) to hundreds of students and they have been extremely successful.  Students often want to ask questions so I will share several ways with the students that they can ask questions if they do not feel comfortable asking in front of others. Although the format will allow students to ask questions, practice the use of hand measurement of the sky, and respond to prompts, the format will be more in line with a virtual planetarium show(mostly lecture) than a typical lab or class.  We will spend time reviewing the constellations learned each day and students will be given some constellation scavenger hunting papers to let them track which constellations they find at home.  We will also have a quick introduction to using a Star Wheel.

Class 1: Beginning Night Sky: Level 1 -- Intro to the night sky, the north star, and circumpolar constellations/asterisms
Class 2: Beginning Night Sky: Level 2-- Summer Triangle, Winter Triangle, Winter Hexagon and corresponding constellations
Class 3: Beginning Night Sky: Level 3 -- Constellations toward the center of our galaxy and using them to find other important locations
Class 4: Beginning Night Sky: Level 4 -- A closer look at the stars of Orion
Class 5: Bad Boys of Renaissance Astronomy -- Learn how the renaissance changed astronomy and review the week's material