By DAVID HILL*
Here is a genuinely out-of-this-world idea. I want to claim that all New Zealand children would benefit from studying astronomy. I know the subject is taught. In our primary schools, it is an option. In high schools, it is a compulsory module in years 9 to 11 science.
But I would like to see it and its implications taught still more widely.
I'm an enthusiastic amateur in the field, and no species is more tiresome. But I have several reasons for wanting everyone to be starry-eyed.
Much of our education focuses on our country, our town, our time. So it should. But this does make for an inward, restricted focus. In contrast, is there any topic which makes people look outwards towards the unrestricted as much as astronomy?
Our children grow up in a society obsessed with the ephemeral. Astronomy, by comparison, can make people aware of great sweeps of time. It offers a revelation of scale - the 14 billion years since the Big Bang which began our universe; the 4.5 billion years since our Earth formed.
It develops a sense of wonder. Photos of Comet Shoemaker-Levy slamming into Jupiter, or the famous Hubble space telescope image of thousands of galaxies spangling an apparently dark sky bring us face to face with the astonishing. I suggest that such horizon-stretching is one purpose of education.
Astronomy brings knowledge of the great myths (which children seldom learn now) that underpin self-definition. It tells of Orion and the scorpion that killed him; the great Maori waka whose anchor-rope stretches across the sky to the Southern Cross.
Studying astronomy promotes wonder not only at the far-off, but the very near. Socrates claimed that the unexamined life was not worth living. Astronomy is a constant encouragement to examine our lives.
Tell pupils about our tiny scale in the galaxy, that our bodies are literally made from stardust, the debris from earlier, exploding stars. Such awareness is a step to understanding our precarious, privileged place in the universe - and to living accordingly.
Astronomy is one of the most international topics that education can offer. It promotes common ground, purpose, excitement across all cultures. It is potentially one of the most vital self-defence skills we can offer our descendants. People who cannot find their way around town are disadvantaged and vulnerable. People in the future who cannot find their way around space will be similarly afflicted.
It also remains very much in our interests to know enough about the skies to spot and then deflect the incoming asteroid which is statistically likely to annihilate large chunks of the planet sometime in the next few million years.
And astronomy is central to another self-defence scenario. In about two billion years, our sun will exhaust the hydrogen gas in its core and start burning helium. Its outer surface will swell hugely. The inner planets - Mercury, Venus, then Earth - will be scorched to cinders. Humans will have to find other, habitable planets or moons.
Yes, one more reason to teach astronomy is to help future generations to man the interstellar lifeboats.
* David Hill is a Taranaki writer.
By DAVID HILL*
Here is a genuinely out-of-this-world idea. I want to claim that all New Zealand children would benefit from studying astronomy. I know the subject is taught. In our primary schools, it is an option. In high schools, it is a compulsory module in years 9 to 11 science.
AdvertisementAdvertise with NZME.