A Web Site That's Truly Out of This World
By Meg McCaffrey -- School Library Journal, 1/1/2004
Slooh, an astronomical term for repositioning a telescope, is basically an online planetarium that sets its sights on places like the Andromeda galaxy, the Moon, and Jupiter.
Slooh's telescopes are located at one of the premier astronomical viewing sites in the world, atop Mount Teide in the Canary Islands. It is five hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time there, so some American educators and students can benefit from nighttime telescope viewing during school hours. The telescopes are situated above the cloud line, where there's an absence of light. This is key, says a Telescope Time representative, because a common barrier to getting clear observations from backyard telescopes is due to light from cities filling the night sky.
"This is truly an amazing complement to a science curriculum, providing a hands-on experience to engage students in learning about space," says Dr. Eric J. Chaisson, director of the Wright Center for Innovative Science Education at Tufts University.
Membership to the site starts at $49 annually. For that fee, users can log onto the site and get opportunities to view 20 known wonders of space. Members just click onto the telescope of their choice. Users can even control a telescope panning in and zooming out.
The site will soon offer age-appropriate lesson plans. Voice-overs from kid-friendly characters explain what students are seeing. For example, there is a Gandalf–like character who offers mythology lessons about space, as well as a geeky tech guy who offers more scientific explanations. They explain things like how Saturn's rings came to be, and why the ancient Greeks and others named the planets for their gods.
For information on discounted usage licenses, visit www.slooh.com.
