Our Light or Starlight?

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Apr 13

2011

by GAMBlog

Children can play key roles in raising awareness about light pollution.

The arc or the Milky Way seen from a truly dark location is part of our planet's natural heritage. But with half of the world's population now living in cities, many urban dwellers have never experienced the wonderment of pristinely dark skies and maybe never will. So, how do you explain to them the importance of what they've lost to artificial skyglow? How can you make them aware that light pollution is a concern on many fronts: safety, energy conservation, cost, health, effects on wildlife, as well as our ability to view the stars? How do you convince them that it's worthwhile to take steps, even small ones, to help redress this issue?

Image credit: Babak Tafreshi

In preparing for the International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009), the Dark Skies Awareness (DSA) Working Group and I, as its chair, wrestled with these questions. (DSA was 1 of 12 global cornerstone projects for IYA2009.) Ultimately, l've come to think that to influence cultural change effectively — to make people literally look up and see the light — we must make children a main focus and use approaches that offer cursory to committed involvement. We must make the programs and resources as turnkey as possible, especially for educators, and provide ways to visualize the problem with simple, easy-to- grasp, and enjoyable activities.

As I watched IYA2009 unfold, I was astounded by the large number of people worldwide who became involved in DSA, and also by the creativity of these people. Their efforts sparked a revolution in their communities — motivated by some aspect of a DSA program but fueled by their ingenuity and sweat.

In one instance, this revolution was the outcome of simply providing a dark-skies kit to a teacher in Chile, as part of a well- organized effort through the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory to work with schools in regions near astronomical sites. A book included in the kit, Bob Crelin's There Once Was a Sky Full of Stars, struck a chord with her students. The students translated the book and made one of the best dark-skies videos from a child's perspective that I have ever seen.

Here is the video with English subtitles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXZkkrJ8wHc

In another instance, creativity flew off the Richter scale. It all started with preparations in advance of last year's Globe at Night campaign, which encourages people all over the world to record and report the brightness of their night sky by matching Orion’s appearance with star maps of progressively fainter stars. One Indiana school district took this simple concept to a whole new level. Thousands of its students observed Orion from their back- yards — amassing 20% of the 2009 Globe at Night data. But they did not stop there. They next asked: how much of our night sky have we lost?

To find the answer, the students visualized the sky with a 3-D model of their Globe at Night sky measurements. They first stacked 35,000 LEGO® blocks to represent a pristinely dark sky in which thousands of stars could be seen, and then they took away 12,000 blocks according to their Globe at Night sky measurements. What remained corresponded to a sky nine times brighter than the truly dark ideal. The students presented their findings to local leaders and were honored for their efforts (visit www.LetThereBeNight. com for details).

Countless individuals around the world have contributed toward preserving dark skies by raising public awareness, either through their own grassroots efforts or through the DSA programs, many of which will continue beyond IYA2009. Seeing their efforts bear fruit will take time, but ultimately they'll have lasting effects.

Perhaps this year you too will choose starlight over our light.

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Acknowledgment: Above article first appeared in Sky & Telescope magazine May 2010 issue.

Blogger:

Connie Walker, an astronomer by training, serves as the Senior Science Education Specialist for the National Optical Astronomy Observatory in Tucson, Arizona. She also leads the Global Astronomy Month’s Dark Skies Awareness efforts.

Image credit: Ameé J. Salois