🔭 HOMESCHOOL SCIENCE & HISTORY: The Starry Messenger

Galileo Galilei, one of the most important scientists in history, was born on this day in 1564 in Pisa, Italy. Why not spend a little homeschool time this week learning about him at your local library or online, or in your recommended homeschool history encyclopedia, which has a fine illustrated overview of the seventeenth-century Scientific Revolution on pages 266–267.

Galileo was a polymath, and there are a hundred aspects of his life that you and your students could explore. A good place to start is with his famous observations and theories about falling bodies. It seems natural for us on earth to think that heavy objects fall faster than light objects — that was the ancient view that Aristotle and many others early scientists took for granted. Galileo argued that this was in fact false, and that if we could eliminate air resistance, all objects (whether heavy or light) would fall at the same rate.

Here’s a famous proof of Galileo’s position, one that every homeschool student should see: Apollo 15 astronaut David Scott dropping a hammer and a feather together on the moon (which has no atmosphere and so no atmospheric resistance) and observing that they fall at exactly the same rate.

And here’s a more detailed demonstration of the same phenomenon, this time done on earth in the world’s largest vacuum chamber — showing that gravity does indeed work the same way on the earth and the moon, once we remove the earth’s interfering atmosphere.

That simple experiment is so counterintuitive to our earth-derived common sense — common sense that we have developed in our friction-filled atmosphere — that it’s difficult to absorb, even when we see it with our own eyes. But as David Scott said, “Mr. Galileo was correct!”

If you want a real homeschool treat this week, spend an evening watching and talking about the Galileo episode of Jacob Bronowski’s magnificent documentary series The Ascent of Man. It’s one of the special historical documentaries we recommend for homeschoolers every year, and this episode in particular places Galileo and his many discoveries in the context of his time and the whole history of science.

What scientific explorations have you and your students made in your homeschool this Orion Term? 😊

❡ Here, said the year: This is one of our regular posts about Homeschool Holidays & History. Add your name to our weekly River Houses mailing list to get more great homeschool history lessons delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 📫

❡ Homeschool calendars: We have a whole collection of free, printable, educational homeschool calendars and planners available on our main River Houses calendar page. They will help you create a light and easy structure for your homeschool year. Give them a try today! 🗓

❡ Support our work: If you enjoy our educational materials, please support us by starting your regular Amazon shopping from our very own homeschool teaching supplies page. When you click through from our page, any purchase you make earns us a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for helping us to keep going and growing! 🛒

❡ Join us! The aim of the River Houses project is to create a network of friendly local homeschool support groups — local chapters that we call “Houses.” Our first at-large chapter, Headwaters House, is now forming and is open to homeschoolers everywhere. Find out how to become one of our founding members on the Headwaters House membership page. 🏡