Bad Astronomy

Astronomy questions from sixth graders, Part 1

Note: There is a special note to teachers at the bottom of this post. If you’re a teacher, please be sure to check it out!

My friend Tina is a teacher at the Saegert Sixth Grade Center in Austin, Texas. She asked her sixth grade students to send me questions they had about astronomy, and I answer them on camera. There were so many I had to split this into five parts! Here’s Part 1.

The questions in this part are:

1) Why are you called the Bad Astronomer?

2) Have you ever been to space?

3) Do you think aliens are real?

4) If you were a scientist, what would you do? :-)

5) Is there life on other planets?

6) Will humans ever live on the Moon or Mars?

7) What’s your favorite planet?

8) Pluto: planet or not?

There are 4 more parts to this video, and I’ll link to them as I put them up. Maybe one per day, first thing? We’ll see.

SPECIAL NOTE TO TEACHERS: Many schools block access to YouTube. There is another video hosting platform called TeacherTube, which is designed to be used in schools. I’ve uploaded this video to my channel there, where you can access it in your school (note: the video is in higher-resolution on YouTube). If you do, please let me know! I’d love to know what the students thought of the video – warts and all.