The STARRY MESSENGER

 

TEACHERS’ NOTES

Level 2

 

 

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. With the help of the audience, our heroine Andrea is caught up in a race through time to save Galileo.

 

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' which 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.  He finished his working life running the Royal Mint and eventually died at the ripe old age of 85.

 

Newton had a dog, Diamond, who we meet in the play.  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.

 

SCIENTIFIC CONCEPTS EXPLORED

 

DAY LENGTH, YEAR LENGTH

 

Galileo sets up the orbit of the Earth using our heroine, Andrea, as the Earth and himself as the sun.  She is sent round the sun for one complete turn and we discover that it takes the Earth one year to complete an orbit.

         

Andrea cannot understand where day and night come from so Galileo explains. Firstly he sits Andrea in a chair and stands on one side.  Using Andrea's birthday torch as the sun he asks her which side of her is in daylight.  He then asks her how that side gets to be in night time.  With the help of the audience Andrea realises that the Earth itself must spin and Galileo affirms this.  He then asks Andrea to orbit him once more, but this time spinning 365 times as she does so.  She attempts to do this whilst Galileo sums up the movement of the Earth during one year's orbit.

 

THE FORCE OF GRAVITY

 

Galileo has discovered that if you drop objects of differing weights from a height they fall at the same rate.  He demonstrates this using Andrea and the tower of Pisa.  A piece of paper and a stone are dropped from the same height at the same time and they hit the floor at the same time.

 

       

 

Galileo realises that this might have some baring on why the planets don't float off into outer space but stay in their orbits.  Unfortunately he cannot figure out why. It is only when we discover Sir Isaac Newton, sitting under his apple tree that the true reason for the planets and their path around the sun becomes clear. 

 

Sir Isaac realises that between any two objects there is a pulling force, a force of attraction, which is directly proportional to the size of the object.  As we are so small compared to the Earth our pulling force goes unnoticed but in the solar system the Sun and the planets are much bigger so the pulling forces involved are noticeable.  The sun is  the largest thing in the solar system so has the biggest pulling force.  We demonstrate the force of Gravity  exerted by the sun using a piece of elastic to represent the force.  Sir Isaac asks an audience member to hold the elastic and revolve around him.  The helper is held in his/her orbit by the elastic.

 

THE SOLAR SYSTEM

 

Newton uses six members of the audience to then demonstrate how the solar system works.  Each child represents a planet and are stood in planet order.  They are then sent around the sun and show how the outer planets take much much longer to complete one orbit.  Only the six planets known of in Newton's day are shown, but we do stress that there are another three to be discovered 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.

 

This sentence is used again in the final scene where the audience is asked to repeat it in support of Galileo's claims.

 

 

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 to the Judges of Pisa. Galileo is proved to be right and Andrea returns to her bedroom, a more enlightened person

 

At the end of the performance the actors will be happy to take questions.

 

 

SHOW REQUIREMENTS

The actors will be arriving approximately forty minutes prior to the start time in order to set up and will need to have access to the school hall from then. They bring the set, lighting and sound equipment with them so only need access to a plug socket.  They’ll need a space approximately 15’ wide by 10’ deep with the children sitting in front, either seated or on the floor.  The show works well ‘on the flat’ but if it’s more convenient for them to use your stage, please let them know on arrival.  The Starry Messenger lasts one hour with a two minute ‘q & a’ session at the end.