Top 5 reasons it’s hard to educate the public

Over the years I’ve had a number of opportunities to share the wonders of the night sky with people from all walks of life. Most of the time the evening goes well and I feel that at least a few of them have walked away with a greater appreciation of the cosmos and our place in it.

But there’s also a good number of visitors that have a hard time following even the most basic explanation of what’s going on up there.

So I started to wonder “why”. What I came up with is a short list of 5 reasons that in themselves (mostly) seem harmless enough but also point to a deadening of our awareness of the natural world in what we say and what we do. I’ll be interested in hearing if you agree and if you’d make a different list:

#5: Vocabulary: Our day-to-day vocabulary is sprinkled with words and phrases that if not plain wrong are certainly misleading. Probably the two most common ones are “sunrise” and “sunset”. The etymology of the word “sunrise” first started showing in mid 15th century writing which pre-dates Copernicus’ heliocentric  model by approximately 100 years. Since that time we’ve learned the sun does not “rise” or “set” but that the earth spins. Our vocabulary, however, never changed to that new understanding so we still have sun rises and sets. A couple of other incorrect phrases are Shooting Star (actually it is a meteor that is seen streaking across the sky) and when someone is on the fast track to success we talk of their Meteoric Rise, (meteors actually fall).

#4: Inconsistent terminology: It’s not just the terminology of the general public that is confusing, lets take the example of the phases of the moon we astronomers follow passionately. When we say terms like Full, Crescent and Gibbous all one has to do is look up and sure enough that’s exactly what the moon looks like, (after they probably looked up the word “gibbous”). But what about  First and Last Quarter and even  New? A first (or last) quarter moon doesn’t look quarter full, it looks half full. And a new moon doesn’t look like something shiny new… it’s invisible! Confusing! (my explanation of quarter moon being a quarter way around in it’s orbit often gets polite smiles but I’m not convinced it always takes hold).

#3: Telescope: Many people don’t own telescopes and assume you can’t see anything without one. Or, lured by the urge they’ll pick up a discount cheapie with poor optics and a complicated setup. Enough to discourage anyone. Fortunately, there is a lot you can see without complicated equipment. Get away from city lights and you can see plenty with just your eyes. The band of the Milky Way, the Andromeda galaxy and a number of clusters and nebulae. Even if you can’t drive out to a dark sky there are still cool things to find such as seeing the moon, even in daylight. You can also see all 5 of the pre-telescope planets, and of course comets and meteor showers.

#2 It’s Complicated: The bits of astronomy news that is sensational enough to make it to the more public networks is full of things like Black Holes, Gamma Ray bursts and the Hadron Collider. Sometimes it feels like you need a Physics degree to simply get started. Fortunately, this also isn’t true. Hours and hours of fun await with a simple star map and perhaps a pair of binoculars.

#1: Light Pollution: Nothing discourages more than not knowing where to start looking when all you see above you is muck. I won’t go into a rant here. Just tap in to any local astronomy group and you’ll get an earful of all the unnecessary lighting, health hazards, etc. But I will just ask that if you do think you need deck lights or yard lights, that they light the deck or yard and not the sky.

The night sky is for all of us. Look up and see what you’ve been missing. Clear skies to you.