The Starry Messenger
TEACHERS’ NOTES
Level 1
The Starry Messenger is based on Attainment
Target 4 of the National Curriculum for Science covering the Earth's place in
the Universe with emphasis on the important historical figures in the story of
Astronomy. These notes are intended as a
guide to the scientific content within the play and teachers may wish to
undertake preparatory work. However, we
aim to present the scientific content in such a way that it becomes
self-explanatory so preparation is not essential.
We have approached the subject matter from an historical
angle and as the story unfolds we meet Galileo, Sir Isaac Newton and Neil
Armstrong.
GALILEO (1564 - 1642)
Galileo was born in Pisa and attended Pisa University. His researches into the theory of motion
began when he disproved Aristotle's theory that different weights fall at
different speeds. There is a famous
story which tells of Galileo dropping various objects from the Tower of Pisa to
see which hit the ground first.
Galileo built his own telescope and discovered that the
moon's surface was not smooth as previously thought and even managed to
calculate the height of the mountains by measuring the length of their
shadows. He also discovered that Jupiter
has four moons.
In 1610 he published his results in a book called 'The Starry Messenger' and this book
features in our story.
SIR ISAAC NEWTON (1642 - 1727)
Newton, born in the same year Galileo died, was a sickly
baby not expected to survive, but by the age of 26 he was professor of
Mathematics at Cambridge.
In 1687 he finished his greatest work, the 'Principia
Mathematica' which finally disproved the Aristotelian view of the solar system.
It was from Galileo's work on falling bodies and Kepler's
laws of planetary motion that he developed his three laws of motion and the
general theory of gravitation as a force of attraction between any two objects.
Newton was elected a fellow at the Royal Society in 1672 and
in the play we see him giving a lecture there on the stars and planets.
We also meet Diamond, his dog in the play and in real
life. In fact Diamond was supposed to
have destroyed many pages of Newton's notes by knocking over a candle and
setting fire to them.
NEIL ARMSTRONG AND THE
LUNAR EXPEDITIONS
In 1960 the USA decided to send a manned craft to the moon
after several missions involving unmanned spaceships and they called the plan
the Apollo project. They developed
Saturn V, the rocket launcher designed to carry Apollo 8 and in December 1968
three astronauts circled the moon.
But it was not until 20th July 1969 that Neil Armstrong
became the first man on the moon closely followed by Edward 'Buzz' Aldrin. A third astronaut remained in the spacecraft
whilst Armstrong and Aldrin performed their now famous space walk.
The play centres around Galileo and his fight to get his
revolutionary theories believed. Our
heroine Andrea is taken back to 17th Century Italy by the strange,
battered old telescope she receives for her birthday and is quickly caught up
in a race through time to find the evidence to support Galileo and his theories
on astronomy. With the help of Sir Isaac
Newton, Neil Armstrong and the audience Galileo’s theories are proved correct
at the great trial in Pisa and the truth is discovered about the solar system.
SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS
EXPLORED
DAY LENGTH AND YEAR
LENGTH
With the help of Andrea, our heroine, Galileo demonstrates
how the Earth travels around the sun.
Andrea plays the sun and a member of the audience plays the Earth. The 'Earth' is then sent around the sun and
we discover that it takes 1 year, or 365 days for the Earth to travel once
around the sun.
However, the question is posed as to how day and night
occur. Galileo, using his volunteer,
demonstrates that one full turn will give both night and day and that the Earth
then spins 365 times in one year.
THE SOLAR SYSTEM
Sir Isaac Newton uses six members of the audience to
demonstrate how the solar system works.
Each child represents one of the planets and stands in planet order.
They are sent around the sun in their order to show how they planets orbit the
sun and how the outer planets take much longer to complete one orbit. As only six planets were known of in Sir
Isaac Newton's day we only demonstrate those six, but stress that three more
planets will be found and we name them.
Newton teaches the audience a sentence which helps them to
remember the order of the planets: My Very
Eccentric Mother Juggles Saucepans Up Near Pudsey.
An alternative without Pluto might be My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Noodles.
The first letter of each word is the first
letter of a planet. The audience are
asked to remember the sentence and explain it to the judge in the final scene.
THE MOON
On the moon we meet Neil
Armstrong. He tells us that the moon
circles the Earth every 29 ˝ days, or one month.
The moon has no light of
its own but is lit by the sun. As it
revolves around the Earth it keeps the same face towards the Earth. Therefore it has one permanent lit side and
one side in constant darkness. This is
why we see a waxing and a waning moon.
Armstrong explains that
we only ever see the lit parts of the moon.
When the dark side is facing we see no moon, or a New Moon. As the moon circles the Earth more and more
of the lit side is visible and we see firstly a crescent moon, then a quarter
moon (We think of this as a half moon) then
we see a Gibbous Moon, or a three quarters moon and finally we see all
of the lit side, a Full Moon.
As the moon appears to
increase in size it is said to be waxing and as it decreases it is said to be
waning.
In the final scene the
children are asked to recap what they have learnt along the way to help Galileo
prove his theories correct to the Head of the Hall of Fame. The final resolution
is that Galileo is allowed to stay in the Hall of Fame.
At the end of the performance there will be a 10 minute
question and answer session where the
actors will be happy to take questions.