Dear All,
I have read the correspondence about Oscar with
much interest. "How," it is almost asked, "can
we used sundials as a means of interesting
children in science?"
Like Tony Moss, and no doubt several others on
this list, I have given many talks on Sundials
in schools and to brownies and cubs and so on.
I have minimal knowledge of child psychology
or educational theory (topics which have a
tendency to raise my blood pressure) but I
have made a number of observations...
Clearly the age of the group will dictate what
you can hope to get across. You won't get very
far unless:
1. The children can tell the time from an
ordinary 12-hour two-hand clock or watch.
2. The children have some understanding of
North, South, East and West.
In my experience, many children can tell the time
before they go to school (by which I mean age 5).
Moreover, they have little difficulty adjusting
to the idea of a clock with one hand or to the
idea of a 24-hour clock. If you want to talk about
sundials, this is good news!
The bad news is that understanding North, South,
East and West seems MUCH harder.
In my experience, most adults are fairly hopeless
at directions. I have, many times, said I will
meet someone at the WEST door of a particular
Church and I found that the failure rate was high.
I gave up this approach when I found that even the
Vicar didn't get it right!
For young children (6 to 10) the niceties of a
polar-orientated gnomon can be left on one side.
What they want is something real. Here are a
couple of ideas for teachers...
Idea one: find some convenient vertical pole
which has a hard surface round it. This might
be a netball post on the playground.
If the sun is cooperative, you ask the children
outside when they first arrive in the morning.
You note the direction of the shadow and get one
of the children to draw a short length of time
line and mark the time in some way. If there is
a school clock in sight that would be ideal.
You don't make a great fuss of this but you take
them out again at break time and at lunch time and
at going home time.
This will get across several things. Notably that
the shadow goes round and that in the course of a
school day it goes round less than half a circle.
You can ask several questions. Will it keep going
round during the night? Will it still work tomorrow?
Will it still work at Christmas? Will it work when
the clocks go back?
Idea two: once idea one has sunk in, you can set up
an experiment in the class room. All you need is a
large sheet of paper, a vertical spike and a bright
light.
You can then simulate the pole and the playground
and explain what is going on. If you lay all this
out on a circular table you can simulate sunrise
and sunset and so on by diving under the table
at night!
Of course you must let the children have a go
themselves. They must play at being the sun!
You can even write E and S and W on the paper
as well as times.
I frequently do this in lectures when I use a
300W lamp and I can wander around simulating a
winter day or a summer day and so on.
A 300W lamp is a bit dangerous for children but,
on a small scale, a suitable torch would do.
Enough!
Frank King
Cambridge, U.K.
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