Re: ATM demise

[Ari <Ari@birmingham-us.crosswinds.net>]

Jeff Medkeff wrote:
> I only rarely see anyone ten years younger
> than I, and I only saw minors at three events in the last year (and in this
> respect, Table Mountain Star Party deserves special mention, for that event
> alone practically made up for the failures of the others).

Maybe Birmingham's an exception, but I know a 14 year old who owns her
own telescope, I am building my own telescope (14 as well), and a friend
of mine just got his own telescope (I talked him out of a Tasco for an
Orion). None of our parents are actively involved in astronomy.
Birmingham's skys are pretty badly light polluted (one of these days I'm
gonna check our Lim. Mag.), but that's three kids in one city that I
know of personally.

 
> Only one of the groups I have spoken to makes an active effort to recruit
> young people (by my definition this is from the age of speech to, say, 25
> years) into the club. (That's one out of about forty.) Only two of those
> groups make any active efforts OF ANY KIND to boost club membership (in any
> age group), or to get the club exposed to the local community on a regular
> basis. Only about 5 or 6 of those clubs have a member working in Project
> Astro or a similar activity that reaches youngsters.

Not going to argue there...I haven't seen any BAS posters lying around
my school...maybe I'll start it. (as he says this and reads the next
column, Ari realizes just how much that comment implied apathy :) ) 

That said, my old 5th grade teacher, now my brother's teacher, got a
local astronomer to bring out 3 telescopes and show the planets to the
kids. She does it every year.


> So in addition to light pollution, I am rapidly concluding that another
> important factor in the lack of youth interest is the comfort and apathy of
> those presently in the hobby. Of course, the further growth of light
> pollution is, now, to a large extent attributable to that same apathy.

> There are exceptions to these experiences, of course, and if I haven't
> given a talk at your club I'm not pointing a finger at you. I'm also not
> pointing fingers at Table Mountain Star Party, and also not at the Tacoma
> club (mark my words - Washington state is going to be the population and
> intellectual center of US amateur astronomy in 20 years time). But I find
> it hard to believe that the forty groups I have spoken to are highly
> atypical of astronomy groups generally.
> 
> >I'd say it's not on the decline - it's just "storing some potential" to be
> >released when light pollution is brought under control.
> 
> I'd like to believe that. But it would be much better if you could write
> that in the last two years, you have had 100+, or better yet, 500+ kids
> exposed to amateur astronomy, even if they still couldn't find the big
> dipper, instead of the 10+ young people you mention. And of course, not
> just you, but many more of us. At least then some young people would know
> that the dipper is there, have an idea of how to look for it, and possibly
> have a small seed of interest planted.

There must be 100 kids (75?) in the Cherokee Bend 5th grade class, and
every year they are exposed to astronomy. But then again, knowing that
the dipper is there and being able to find it in our light polluted
skies are totally different things.


Clear skies, with lots of little kids looking at them :)
Ari Friedman
There's light at the end of the Sonotube.
Birmingham, AL USA
http://www.mtnbrook.k12.al.us/MBJH/student/ari