But WHY Shouldn't We Look at the Sun?

I'm a 'why' person.  That is probably one of the main reasons why I ended up studying biology in college.  It is why I ended up with my research and teaching position while an undergrad.  Ha, ask enough questions and they'll invite you in to ask even more... I love to ask 'why'. 

Now in the midst of mothering and teaching my children, I get to be on the receiving end of the 'why'.  It is challenging for sure and yet something about it is so exciting.  I know how important it is to foster that curiosity and desire to know why.  Once stoked, the fires of curiosity will fuel life-long learning.

As we embarked on our astronomy explorations, I embraced the barrage of questions, asking a few of my own.  This week we've been reading about the sun.  It is one thing to read about how powerful the sun is, it is quite another thing to actually SEE it.

A few days ago, we read of how damaging it can be for us to look at the sun.  I could see my almost 5 year old get that look in his eyes as I read.  He wanted to go try and see for himself.  The 8 year old, my cautious one, was wise enough to ask why.  Instead of relying on 'because the book said so', I grabbed a magnifying glass while the boys found a few leaves that hadn't been hit by our big freeze earlier this month and we proceeded to head outdoors to test the powers of focused sunlight.

I reminded them that we have a lens in our eyes, much like this magnifying glass that it focuses light and images for us.

{photo credit: wikipedia}

 So what happens when we focus sunlight into one small spot?  FIRE!  For real.  Do I know how to make boys happy or what?  Of course now I need to make sure and hide the magnifying glass from the preschooler.

Greta wasn't too into making fire, but she sure loved playing with acorns and hanging out with us during our experiments...

While the older two certainly understood the lesson here {don't look at the sun}, I wasn't entirely convinced that the youngest understood the ramifications.  We we embarked the next day to make 'eyeball' cookies.  In this case, they made snickerdoodles and we plopped chocolate kisses {that are who knows how old} into the middle upside down.

Once our cookies were finished, we popped them in the freezer to chill before taking them outside to see what would happen to our eyes when the magnifying lens concentrated sunlight.  They understood and were begging me to stop the experiment before we totally ruined their rare cookie treat!

It's days like this when I am reminded how special it is to stay home with my kids and learn along side them!