Schools : Happy Lunar Year 2023. Year of the Rabbit : Science & Interculturality !

 

Happy Lunar New Year photo collage

credits : Meiying Lee, Taipei, Taiwan

https://earthsky.org/human-world/

Millions of people in Asian cultures will celebrate the Lunar New Year this weekend, the 22 January 2023. After the first New Moon of the lunar Lunar calendar, each year, communities around the world set up decorations, make festive food and gather with loved ones to usher in the new year. 

The start of the holiday coincides with the date of the New Moon, which will fall on January 21, 2023, January 22 in Asia.

The Lunar New Year is a time to honor deities and ancestors and to be with family. An animal represents each of the 12 years in the Chinese zodiac. In 2023, it’s the Year of the Rabbit. The Year of the Rabbit is associated with peace and prosperity.

Why new moon? In Asian cultures, the rabbit represents the moon. Some says it's because the shadows, others say it's because the rabbit's pure characteristics.

Truly, the Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, a combination of solar and lunar calendars. Plus, it has a long history spanning several Chinese dynastic periods from as far back as the Shang Dynasty around the 14th century BCE. Also, there are several different symbolic cycles within the calendar, used in Chinese astrology.

credits: Getty Images

• Legends:

The Rabbit is the fourth of all zodiac animals. Legend has it the Rabbit was proud, sometimes arrogant even of its speed. He was neighbors with Ox and always made fun of how slow Ox was. 

"One day, the Jade Emperor said the zodiac order would be decided by the order in which the animals arrived at his party. Rabbit set off at daybreak. But when he got there, no other animals were in sight. Thinking that he would obviously be first, he went off to the side and napped. However, when he woke up, three other animals had already arrived. One of them was the Ox he had always looked down upon."

Similar to Esopo fable The Tortoise and the Hare, adapted by La Fontaine, isn't it? 

The traditions of the Lunar New Year festival date back thousands of years to a popular legend: 

"A mythical beast called Nian was known to show up each Lunar New Year’s eve and terrorize people and livestock. Loud noises, the color red and fire scared Nian away, so it became a tradition for families to decorate their doors in red paper, set off fireworks and leave lanterns burning all night."

Lunar New Year 2023

https://www.google.com/doodles/

• Google Doodles:

Today’s Doodle celebrates an important holiday in several Asian cultures. The Lunar New Year! After the first new moon of the Lunar calendar each year, communities around the world set up decorations, make festive food and gather with loved ones to usher in the New Year. 

The Doodle artwork is crafted from paper to honor Chinese paper-cutting 'Jianzhi', which is a long-time Lunar New Year tradition. 

Today 22 January in Asian calendar, red remains a key part of Lunar New Year celebrations as people hang red lanterns in the streets and gift money in red envelopes to children and retired seniors. 

Traditional meals are popular during celebrations and they vary across the world. For example, pineapple tarts and yusheng (a dish with raw fish and a salad) are a staple in Singapore and Malaysia, while communities in Vietnam enjoy bánh chưng (a rice cake made with mung beans, pork, and other ingredients wrapped in bamboo leaves). 

Lunar New Year 2023 in South Korea

https://www.google.com/doodles/

This Doodle celebrates Lunar New Year, or Seollal (설날) in Korean. Each year, South Koreans enjoy this important holiday with family gatherings, traditional feasts and festive games.

세배 (sebae) is a principal Korean tradition where young people kneel on the ground and bow their heads to pay respect to older people and wish them a happy new year. Afterwards, older people often reward the youth with money inside envelopes wishing good luck. Families then feast on traditional food like tteokguk (떡국), a creamy rice cake soup, and sweet fritters called jeon (전).

Lunar New Year 2023 in Vietnam

https://www.google.com/doodles/

The Doodle celebrates an important festival in Vietnam - Lunar New Year ! Known as Tet in Vietnamese, this holiday is celebrated by communities each year celebrating love, the start of spring, and the best of hopes for the new year. During Tet festival, people often travel to the homes of their extended families and bring in the new year with feasts.

Tet Festival is traditionally celebrated across six days to spend time connecting with friends and colleagues and visiting temples and ancestral burial sights. During family feasts, people typically eat vegetables, banh chung (sticky rice cake), and cu kieu (pickled scallion).

The colors red and yellow are tied to good fortune, and Vietnamese people give money in red envelopes to children and retired seniors. It’s also a tradition to decorate the outside of homes with flowers - most commonly hoa dao (cherry blossoms) in the north and hoa mai (yellow Mai flower) in the south. 

credits: Getty Images

• Lantern Festival:

Chinese New Year 2023 falls on Sunday, January 22nd, 2023, and celebrations culminate with the Lantern Festival on February 5th, 2023.

Lantern Festival

credits: Getty Images

The Chinese New Year holiday comes to its great moment with the Yuan Xiao (元宵节 / yuán xiāo jié), or Lantern Festival, celebrated on February 5th, 2023.

The biggest attraction of the Lantern Festival is the sea of lanterns in every conceivable size and shape. Interesting! To us who live in Porto, Portugal, we have a traditional and popular festivity in June 24 called Noite de São João. 

During this ancient festivity, all the people in town, young and oldest, go to the streets enjoying and releasing big colorful lanterns to the sky during all night.

São João Porto, Portugal

via Google Images

• Lantern Festival in History:

Chinese started to celebrate the Lantern Festival during the Han Dynasty (206 BC-221 AD), and then it became popular during the Tang dynasty (618-907) and Song Dynasty (960-1279). 

This is a festival for people to have fun. At night, people go into the streets with a variety of lanterns under the full moon and watch the lion or dragon dance, try to solve Chinese riddles and play games, enjoy typical food called Yuan Xiao and set off firecrackers. There is really a lot of fun for the young and the old.

credits: The Cli Team

Google Images

Began over 2000 years ago, the festival has developed many meanings. It celebrates family reunions and society. It features ancient spiritual traditions. Some also call this the “true” Chinese Valentine’s Day.

Education:

As you see interculturality is all over de world.  Three-quarters of the world’s major conflicts have a cultural dimension.

Bridging the gap between cultures is urgent and necessary for peace, stability and development.

A good moment to talk about Lunar New Year - Year of the Rabbit with students. Invite them to a concrete action to support diversity aims:

• To raise awareness worldwide about the importance of intercultural dialogue, diversity and inclusion.

• To build a world community of individuals committed to support diversity with real and every day-life gestures.

Cultural and linguistic diversity, local traditions are interesting subjects to include and discuss into school curricula by using science to explain why Asian people call their new year, Lunar Year, inviting students to deepen their knowledge using social media in the classroom.

Learners are curious about other cultures and traditions. Let students participate in different activities by doing ONE thing for diversity.

• Values: family, friends, honoring old people. And of course, sensitivity, prosperity and peace.

• Diversity and interculturality:

Fables 

As students could learn, the Asian legends about the Rabbit are interculturally connected. The ancient writers as Esopo, a Greek fabulist and storyteller credited with a number of fables now collectively known as Aesop's Fables. Numerous tales credited to him were gathered across the centuries and in many languages in a storytelling tradition that continues to this day.

La Fontaine  A French writer of  fables who inspired by Esopo fable The Tortoise and the Hare wrote Le Lièvre et la Tortue.

Le Lièvre et la Tortue

Jean de La Fontaine

https://www.amazon.fr/

Lantern Festivals:

As I wrote above, there an ancient and popular festivity in Portugal where people hang color lanterns in the streets releasing them to the sky during all night.

It's easy to understand that interculturality exist around the world in different civilizations. So to combat polarization and stereotypes we must improve understanding and cooperation among people from different cultures. And that begins in school.

You must have Asian students in your class. It's time to invite them to share their traditions into the classroom.

São João Porto, Portugal

via Google Images

Students and educators are an important part of society to built bridges on a friendly dialogue. Students are spontaneous, curious, they like to learn about different cultures. Not so different as we could verify.

Bridging the gap between cultures is urgent and necessary for peace, stability and development.

Cross-curricular project: Languages; literature; history and geography; music; art.

If you are the Art teacher, invite your students to do rabbits artwork crafted paper in different colors to honor the paper folding & cutting art traditionally practiced during Lunar New Year. They will love it!  

Don't forget ! The #YearOfTheRabbit is about sensitivity, prosperity and peace, values that must be a part of all the Humanity.

May this #LunarNewYear2023 bring happiness and prosperity to you and your loved ones!

No matter where you’re celebrating, here’s to a wonderful Lunar New Year 2023!

G-Souto

22.01.2023

copyright © 2023G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com

Schools : Happy Lunar Year 2023, Year of the Rabbit ; science & interculturality ! by GinaSouto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

sources: 

EarthSky/ Human world 

Chinese Zodiac/ Year of the Rabbit

Confucius Institute Scotland/ The Legend of the beast Nian

Science : The Geminids shower ? Let's talk about, Annie Jump Cannon & much more !

2012 Geminid Meteor Shower over the Canary Islands 

© StarryEarth / Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias
Canon EOS 5D Mark II, 50.0 mm, ISO 3200 – composite

via American Meteor Society

The Geminid Meteor Shower is one of the best (if not the best) meteor shower of the year. Geminid Meteors are bright with a (seasonally festive) greenish hue that leave long lasting dust trails in the sky. 

Active now! Year in and year out the Geminids are currently the most dependable meteor shower. Unfortunately, they are active in December when temperatures are often cold and skies cloudy in the northern hemisphere.

Last year Google celebrated the Geminids meteor shower with a slideshow Doodle on 13 December.

Don't forget to talk about it in the classroom. It's lovely! Young students will enjoy it and will understand better the meteor shower.

Some information:

The Geminid meteor shower is nearly 200 years old, according to known records - the first recorded observation was in 1833 from a riverboat on the Mississippi River - and is still going strong. In fact, it's growing stronger. That's because Jupiter's gravity has tugged the stream of particles from the shower's source, the asteroid 3200 Phaethon, closer to Earth over the centuries. 

 Image credit: Sky & Telescope diagram

https://skyandtelescope.org/

The Geminids can be annually observed between December 4 and December 17, with its peak activity being around December 14. The shower owes its name to the constellation Gemini from where the meteors seem to emerge from in the sky.

But 2021 isn't expected to be a spectacular year for the Geminids, as the shower's peak on Dec. 13-14 arrives just a few days before the full moon. 

Even after the peak, bright meteors may be visible for the next few nights. The best time to watch for the Geminids is about 2 a.m. in your local time zone. 

This year it started 7 December. However there will be a nearly full moon in the sky as the Geminids peak on the night of December 13/14. 

December's full moon is known as the Cold Moon, though it has many other nicknames by different cultures:  Oak Moon, Moon before Yule, Long Night Moon, Uduvapa Poya, the Karthikai Deepam Moon and the Chang'e Moon.

credits: American Meteor Society

https://blogs.nasa.gov/

The Moon will appear full for about three days centered on this time, from Tuesday 12 December evening through Friday morning.

Unfortunately this means that the fainter meteors will be obscured by the bright moonlight and that total counts will be reduced drastically.

Though the Geminid shower is a quite lively producing frequent bright meteors, which should outshine the copious moonlight.

Then is this display worth viewing this year? Certainly! So it may be chilly out, but if you and your students step outside over the next week, you’ll be able to enjoy one of the most active meteor showers of the year! 

Instead of seeing 60 or more Geminids per hour one may still be able to count roughly 20 per hour. Is 20 per hour worth viewing on a cold December night? Yes!

credits: Dinah Ruth Angot

Education:

On 13/14 December, the spectacular Geminids meteor shower will be back with its spectacular show. 

The winter, cold temperatures contribute in making this shower neglected by the public, while it offer bright, very enjoyable meteors. 

But most of us are excited about the Geminids shower. Science teachers and students. They will join sky watchers at an observatory in the town or simply outside.

This time teachers and students are just ending school time before Christmas season. But they will have the time - forget the tests - to watch the sky and sciences curriculum will be enhanced with the awesome event in the sky.

Do you want a better science lesson ? Two nights on live science. But we have more! Annie Jump Cannon, do you know her name ? A pioneer woman in Astronomy. Wow!

• Annie Jump Cannon: A pioneer in Astronomy

Annie Jump Cannon, 1922

via Biography.com

American astronomer Annie Jump Cannon spent her life studying the night sky. On 11 December 2014, the homepage in the U.S. was gazing at the stars Cannon loved so much for her 151st birthday. A pioneer in Astronomy, Cannon developed the Harvard Classification Scheme with Edward C. Pickering, which organized and categorized stars based on their temperatures.

Annie Jump Cannon, American astronomer

Google Doodles

https://www.google.com/doodles/

• Google Doodle:

Google honored with a Doodle on 11 December 2014, the American astronomer Annie Jump Cannon. The Doodle was gazing at the stars Cannon loved so much for her 151st birthday. 

A pioneer in Astronomy, Cannon developed the Harvard Classification Scheme with Edward C. Pickering, which organized and categorized stars based on their temperatures.

Annie Jump Cannon was a pioneering astronomer responsible for the classification of hundreds of thousands of stars.

AAVSO members in 1916, meeting at Harvard College Observatory. The two women in the photograph are Ida E. Woods (front row) and Annie Jump Cannon (behind Woods)

https://www.wikiwand.com/

She was born on 11 December 1863, in Dover, Delaware. Annie Jump Cannon studied Physics and Astronomy at Wellesley College and went on to work at Harvard Observatory. 

The Harvard Computers group

Image Credit: The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics

https://www.lindahall.org/

Cannon began her career as one of several dozen female "computers" – then defined as people who did calculations – hired by Edward Charles Pickering, director of the Harvard College Observatory, to analyze photographic plates of stars — considered unspecialized and tedious work. They were largely unrecognized in their time, but are becoming better-known today for their fundamental contributions to Astronomy. 

Annie Jump Cannon

https://www.aps.org/

A trailblazer for women in science, Cannon discovered hundreds of variable stars and devised a unique system of classification that became the universal standard, in which she listed hundreds of thousands of stars. 

Cannon died in Massachusetts in 1941.

credits: Harvard College Observatory, 1890

https://commons.wikimedia.org/

Cannon's appointment was finally made official in 1938. She won multiple awards, including the Henry Draper Medal of the National Academy of Sciences. Cannon retired in 1940 and continued doing research until she died the following year.

Cannon's spectral classification system is still used today – with a variant. The modern Morgan-Keenan spectral classification system still uses the OBAFGKM sequence, but subdivides each star into a luminosity class to more precisely define its type.

Activities: 

It would be interesting to include this women scientist into your lesson to motivate girls to science.

As a motivation, ask about Annie Jump Cannon. Do students know who she was? Include the Google Doodle about her 151st anniversary into your lesson.

During the Geminids shower sky watching, teachers, students can do some good shots, or videos with iPhones, smartphones or tablets to discuss the theme the next lesson before or after Christmas. That will depends where you are living and teaching.

Using the smartphones, students will need a cable release chord. Luckily they can actually use their iPhone headphones' cable volume button to activate the shutter. And they also need an app designed to take long exposure photos.

Pick the Apollo 17 mission:

Apollo 17 prime crew

credits NASA

via Space.com

By the way on 11 December 1972, Apollo 17 land on the moon. Apollo 17 became the last mission to land humans on the moon. The first mission was Apollo 11 51 years ago.

Commander Gene Cernan was the last person to set foot on the lunar surface as he followed the lunar module pilot, Harrison Schmitt, back into the spacecraft on the last day. Ronald Evans, the command module pilot, never got the chance to walk on the moon like his crewmates did, because he had to hang out by himself in lunar orbit.

You see! How many subjects can you as a teacher enhance your sciences lesson! Students will be so excited to learn about.

Time to back to the Geminids meteor shower...

© David Trood /GettyImages

How and when to view?

To best see the Geminids you need to view as close to December 14th as possible. 

Like all meteors showers, there are many more faint meteors than bright ones. Eyes that had just stared at the moon or just came outside from indoors will not be able to see these fainter meteors. Say your students to give their eyes time at adjust to the darkness. 

There will be periods when little activity is seen and then other periods when meteors are falling constantly. 

These periods often last as long as 15 minutes so it is advisable to watch for an hour or more so that students witness several peaks and valleys and get a real feel of the meteor activity. 

Invite them to go at the observatory in town for a comfortable night of meteor watching. They will be with some interested sky watchers and astronomers from the observatory who will guide during the sky watching.

They can face in any direction as Geminid meteors can be seen in any part of the sky. 

credits: Bronberg Weather Station 

Pretoria, South Africa

https://www.bashewa.com/

No matter what part of the sky they appear, they will all trace back to the radiant near the bright star known as Castor.

Hey ! Don't forget ! The peak of the Geminid meteor shower will be the night of December 13-14. Unfortunately this means that the fainter meteors will be obscured by the bright moonlight and that total counts will be reduced drastically.But don't give up to watch the sky! The full-moon can obtrude too greatly on the great celestial light show. 

Grab those binoculars, dust off that telescope, and join astronomers under the beautiful dark Geminids skies at the observatory at your town!

• NASA To Livestream Annual

Every December we have a chance to see one of our favorite meteor showers – the Geminids. The shower is currently active until Dec. 17 and will peak on the night of Dec. 13 into the morning of Dec. 14, making those hours the best time for viewing the meteor shower. 

Invite your students to follow here

Hoping you will have great lessons including all these resources!

G-Souto

11.12.2019 

updated 13.12.2021

Copyright © 2019G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Useful Links

NASA Science

https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/skywatching/whats-up/

Space.com : 2019 Full Moons Calendar

https://www.space.com/16830-full-moon-calendar.html

American Meteor Society

https://amsmeteors.org/2021/12/meteor-activity-outlook-for-december-11-17-2021/

Schools : The Geminids shower ? Let's talk about, Annie Jump Cannon & something more ! by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.