<![CDATA[The Standard Model - Home]]>Tue, 19 May 2026 15:58:32 -0700Weebly<![CDATA[Lunt 50mm Hydrogen-alpha telescope 2-15-2026]]>Sun, 22 Feb 2026 19:07:58 GMThttps://fizzicks.weebly.com/home/lunt-50mm-hydrogen-alpha-telescope-2-15-2026Experimenting with how to rotate and colorize images of the sun when I create a gif. Pleased with the result. Probably can't zoom in on the image but if you could you would see streamers of plasma flowing in the flares. This represents about 70 minutes of observations taking around 70 videos each one minute long to create 70 pictures to create the gif.
]]><![CDATA[What I learned from the 2018 AP Reading in KC.]]>Mon, 11 Jun 2018 07:00:00 GMThttps://fizzicks.weebly.com/home/what-i-learned-from-the-2018-ap-reading-in-kcUnfortunately, I wasn't a reader on either of the C exams.  I read APP 1 Q 4.  The experience was exhausting, rewarding, funny, sad, amazing, disappointing, affirming, renewing and so many other things.  Over the course of eight days I read over 8500 student APP 1 Q4 and I learned a lot.  In general, AP Physics students are very polite.  Numerous, student responses thanked me for reading their problem and apologized for various things.  Often students who didn't know how to do the problem would tell jokes, tell stories, draw cartoons or fanciful pictures.  Sometimes the stories were sad depictions of their experiences in physics or personal lives.  Sometimes the students would apologize for their performance but relate how much they enjoyed their physics teacher and experience in AP Physics.

On the first day, I tried to take in all the amazing complexity of the grading experience.  I was very impressed with the procedures put into place to safeguard an accurate fair reading.  There were five problems on the APP1 exam.  No fewer than five people read each student's exam and possibly as many as ten.  About seventeen people read Question 4 of the operational exam.  The number of people working on each question depended upon the leadership team's estimate of the bottle necks.  For example, question 2 had 80 readers.  Question 2 was the laboratory design question and in past years the laboratory design problem had been the bottle neck.  As the reading progressed the leadership team monitored the statistics and adjusted the allotted readers moving readers from team to team to make sure that everything was optimized so that we would finish in time.  In fact they did such a good job of pre-planning and adjustments that we finished many hours early.  

I had worked out question 4 before attending and thought that it was relatively straight forward.  I predicted that it would be difficult for students due to the fact that it requires students to be able to imagine a traveling wave given only a word description and a static picture.  Coming into the reading I didn't think there would be much uncertainty in the rubric.  It turned out that I was right about many students finding the problem difficult (I estimate the average to be 2.5/7) and my estimate on what the rubric would be was correct too.  However, due to student responses the interpretation of the rubric was challenge.  Since this was only a seven point problem, the numerical part received credit only if the answer was correct.  This meant that if students used incorrect physics and yet their answer was the correct number they earned credit.  Although this was rare it did happen.  More commonly students incorrectly added such that their final answer was incorrect but their logic was correct.  They received no credit.  Additionally, we were forced to interpret the vector drawings.  Sometimes we were too strict but I feel that more than likely we were too lenient.   I think this could have been avoided if a grid would have been overlaid on the wave form.  If this would have been done I estimate that the average would have been lower.

The most surprising thing for me was how at least 40% of the students left at least one item blank.  I would estimate that 20% of the students I graded didn't even attempt the problem either leaving it completely blank, drawing pictures, telling jokes, writing life stories, complaining, apologizing, or pleading.  The reason why this is surprising is that I believe that these students could have earned a few points even if they didn't know how to answer the question.  It seemed like either the students were trying to make a statement by performing academic harakiri or were frozen into in action by the challenging material.  I remember one student writing an apology after attempting the problem saying that they did their best and that they hadn't studied wave behavior.  She followed the directions and made some educated guesses and that earned her 3/7 point.  Not bad.  Much better than the students who complained and made absolutely no attempt.  It is true that there were students who fully attempted the problem and who earned a 0 but I still think that is better than leaving it blank or using it as a diary entry.

The other surprising thing is how many students used ink pen.  Incredible!  I would say of those answering the question at least 60% used an ink pen.  It was so sloppy and hard to read after all the student scribbles and re-drawings that I have no doubt that they scored much lower than the pencil users.  It definitely cost them points.  Some students even wasted time in redrawing graphs in the margin due to their sloppy scratch marks.  How much time did that cost them I wonder.  I now resolve to make the following announcement and on my syllabus, "students are required to always use pencil (never ink).  Every graded item in which ink is used will receive no points.".]]><![CDATA[Flex Day Professional Development Session 3]]>Tue, 12 Sep 2017 15:06:00 GMThttps://fizzicks.weebly.com/home/flex-day-professional-development-session-3James Kowalski directed a session on PlayPosit.  I shared with him privately that I made one for 8/21/2017 and some of the students said that they could not access it while others said that they had no problem.  I also shared that I wasn't around to witness this so I couldn't say exactly what was happening.  He suggested that perhaps it was early filter problems and it should work now.

Therefore I might give it another try.  I think I need to make one for when I am in class so I can see first hand if it works or not and then make a final decision at that point to if it is worth the EXTENSIVE time commitment.

If it is then I would like to create several for my AP classes to cover topics that I typically do on Saturday sessions.  This might be a better method of getting everyone up to speed quicker so that we can use the Saturday sessions not to lecture but to work problems and whiteboard.]]><![CDATA[Flex Day Professional Development Session 2]]>Tue, 12 Sep 2017 13:01:18 GMThttps://fizzicks.weebly.com/home/flex-day-professional-session-2Jamie Smith ran a Weebly session to share how she uses Weebly in her classroom.  Students link their readings to 21st Century life through their writings as a e-journal.  Kids can be very creative . . . photoshopped, videos from Youtube they make (they have to give you permission to share on your Weebly if students don't want to publish to Youtube you could still ask them to use Screencast-o-matic and use a flashdrive), pictures, format, etc.  Here is a link to Jamie's information.  If student's sign up with school email they lose access upon graduation.

So I have thought about having students create e-lab journals in the past, specifically using a Google Spreadsheet.  The advantage of Google Spreadsheets is that students can easily create graphs and math models.  But it lacks many of the features of Weebly.  Additionally if students use their school Google account they end up losing their journals so that turns out to be a bad idea.  They can always do a screen capture of the graphs and tables and then paste them into a Weebly account associated with a home email account.

I have two hesitations.  One, how will this be received by college physics departments?  Really do any colleges really check their lab journals for AP credit or placement and if they do will an e-version be tolerated.  Traditionally, scientist don't allow erasing (strike throughs only are permitted).  E-journals are the ultimate eraser so how will it be received?

Second, I don't want to use ANY class time for this purpose.  NONE.  I can't afford it.  If colleges are o.k. with it I do admit its value and think I would encourage students to do it.  However, I could never require it if I'm not willing to devote class time for letting students play.  So maybe it would be optional and tout its benefits. 
]]><![CDATA[Flex Day Professional Development Session 1]]>Tue, 12 Sep 2017 12:55:22 GMThttps://fizzicks.weebly.com/home/flex-day-professional-development-sessionsThe first session from 7:20 am to 8:30 am was with Nicole Detter "Maker Space".  We did the Marshmallow challenge.  We were randomly grouped into groups of four.  The goal was to use 20 pieces of spaghetti with 2 yards of tape and 2 yards of string to create a tower to loft a marshmallow the highest.  This would be good to build relationships in advisory.]]><![CDATA[The Great American Eclipse of 2017]]>Mon, 04 Sep 2017 12:36:17 GMThttps://fizzicks.weebly.com/home/the-great-american-eclipse-of-2017My wife, daughter and I took the first Monday of school off to go see the Great American Eclipse.  Approximately a year prior we had discussed the possibility of going to Kentucky to see it but didn't do any planning.  In June of 2017, I finally decided to go through with it but by that time hotel rooms in the path of totality which were normally $70/night were going for $300+/night if they were available at all.  So I booked a room in Evansville, IN for the night before the eclipse with the plan that we would drive to totality the morning of the eclipse.  About a week before the eclipse, predictions were that there would be heavy traffic so the plan was to get up early and drive to a clear weather viewing site within totality.  

I hadn't really planned where we would go because I had never experienced a total eclipse before.  Honestly, I just thought I would drive to a park down in Hopkinsville and watch it.  After a little more thought, I realized that it would make a lot of sense to be sure that there were clean public restrooms available and food too.  I thought about camping out in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant but I felt that would be wrong since their parking lots are relatively small and we might be impacting their business if others were doing the same.  I also considered camping out in a Walmart parking lot since they have much bigger parking lots.  But still had the same morale dilemma.  So while in our Evansville hotel, I went to the Hopkinsville city website to see what they recommended and they had a link to pay-to-park places like church parking lots.  Unfortunately, all of the pay-to-park places were full which really freaked me out.  I then went to Google Maps and started looking at nearby towns with less eclipse advertising and that is where I found an outlet mall with public restrooms and several within walking distance restaurants in Eddysville, KY.  

​Took about an hour and a half to drive to Eddysville from Evansville and were set up in the parking lot of the outlet mall by 7 am.  The town of Eddysville had planned to use the outlet mall parking lot for eclipse viewing and charged a reasonable $10 entrance fee as opposed to the $50 fees in Hopkinsville.  They even were nice enough to wrap up the parking lot lights so that when the lights came on they wouldn't effect our observations.  We were the third car into the parking lot.  We set up on the east side of the parking lot just off to the side in a grassy area.  Others came from as far as Texas.  In fact one car came into the parking lot about 30 minutes before the eclipse from St. Louis, Missouri.  They originally planned to watch it in Missouri but the weather turned and they had to drive all day to they eventually found a good location.  There were storm clouds north of us and a few clouds to the extreme southwest but there were none in Eddysville.  In fact, it was exceedingly hot and humid.  It felt like 95 degrees F but as the eclipse progressed it became cooler and quite comfortable.  I'm guessing that the temperature decreased by 10-20 degrees F.

I had three video cameras set up.  One on my telescope, one to capture my family's reaction, and one to hopefully capture shadow bands.  Unfortunately we didn't see any shadow bands and we couldn't figure out how to turn off the flash on the iPhone equipped telescope once it came on at about totality.  The iPhone-telescope pictures showing the moon's progression across the sun's surface were pretty good.  
We experienced about 2 min 40 sec of totality and the video below captured our reaction.  The 360 degree sunrise was incredible as was the diamond ring.  We saw the sun's atmosphere and saw a plane fly across the moon during totality as well.  I was so absorbed into the experience that I forgot to look for stars or diffraction effects.  In the video you can even hear crickets and katydids starting their night time routines.
After totality we packed up to leave as did most of the other observers.  Although driving to Eddysville was uneventful​, driving home was another thing entirely.  I would say the traffic was far worse than Spring Break traffic even.  It took three hours to get to Evansville alone and we didn't get home until about 10:30 p.m. but I'm happy we went.  In fact, we are planning for the next eclipse on Monday April 8th, 2024 which will probably be the day after Spring Break unless I can talk the school board into not scheduling it.  I'm thinking that we will either go to Indianapolis or Wapakoneta, OH to view it.  I think I will use three video cameras again in the same fashion but I would like to take some pictures during totality and of the diamond ring.  The pictures I took didn't turn out well so I need to research better methods of taking pictures.
]]><![CDATA[Re:  "Three Science Words We Should Stop Using"--Prof. Allain]]>Sun, 12 May 2013 16:56:43 GMThttps://fizzicks.weebly.com/home/re-three-science-words-we-should-stop-using-prof-allainI agree with Professor Allain's Wired blog post completely . . . but I can see why most people would disagree. People who don't get this blog will merely see this as a debate of words (i.e. don't use this word . . . use this word). That's not it. It is a debate of teaching methods--constructivist/Socratic methods as opposed to traditional methods. I do not believe Professor Allain is merely suggesting that we replace the terms hypothesis, theory and scientific law with the term model and that we keep on teaching as we have done in the past.

The problem is externally imposed definitions usually through lecture or by supplying them before understanding has been repeatedly demonstrated in novel situations does not lead to understanding. Most science instructors know this. But most do not put this understanding into action in their classrooms because they don't know how to. Many have tried but they don't want students to form "incorrect" conceptual understandings--NEWS FLASH--that is what they come into your classroom with in the first place and giving them the "correct" definitions will not address the issue.

Some instructors might say: "I don't do that". If an instructor gives labs with a set of directions to follow that were not student created or if an instructor gives a lab after the student was held accountable in some way for understanding it (i.e. homework, worksheets, lectures, reading, etc.) then in fact that is exactly what they are doing. 

Other instructors might say: "I don't have time to follow constructivist/Socratic methods (i.e. too much curriculum to cover before the test)." Coverage does not translate into understanding. I grant you that if the content tested is lower level questions and if it is heavily laden with terminology then it will be doubtful that students will do well if that content hasn't been taught. However coverage does not equate to being "taught".

Supplying carefully constructed definitions will not correct student misconceptions. Only the student can fix their own misconceptions. It is the instructor's job to create activities and SITUATIONS for the student do just that. Most instructors are masters of creating activities because this is something they have can exercise absolute control over. But in reality true student understanding does not occur in these carefully designed activities it is through the DISCUSSIONS and DIALOGUES that occur before, during, and after the activities that really matter. Science instruction needs to be thought of as less a "science" and more a "craft". 

It is mentally fatiguing to craft the Socratic discussion/dialogue to arrive at the destination that you desire. Each class is different. Each student is different. The instructor has to be on top of their game at every moment to react at a moments notice to explore a student's statement that arises. I liken it to helping students to navigate a rapids. The instructor has to be in the moment as opposed to following a road map. As an instructor gets more comfortable with these techniques he/she will realize that the controlling activities they prided themselves on creating in the past actually tend to hinder NOT help student understanding.

Novice learners play and discover and make their own meaning. A thoughtful reflective mentor doesn't lecture and give definitions. The thoughtful reflective mentor converses with his/her students openly, facilitates non-judgemental conversations among novice students, and encourages introspective reflective thinking. The thoughtful reflective mentor asks probing open-ended questions in the language of his/her students in novel situations. The thoughtful reflective mentor then slowly introduces the accepted terminology of the scientific community ONLY after the students makes known to him/herself, his/her peers, and his/her instructor through open dialogue and Socratic discussion that the phenomena is understood in a variety of contexts.

The conversation is the most important part of learning--not the externally provided definition. It is through this just-in-time formative feedback and thoughtful and thought provoking discussion that the thoughtful and reflective mentor is able to be most impactful. Being able to apply the concepts behind the terminology in novel contexts and in everyday life is what counts. Being able to use the jargon is of secondary importance.
]]><![CDATA["Negotiating Science--The Critical Role of Argument in Student Inquiry" by Hand, Norton-Meier, Staker and Bintz]]>Sat, 23 Feb 2013 23:11:14 GMThttps://fizzicks.weebly.com/home/negotiating-science-the-critical-role-of-argument-in-student-inquiry-by-hand-norton-meier-staker-and-bintz1Chapters 4-6

I have mixed feelings about this section.  While I agree with the premise that we need to "explore how we can incorporate opportunities within our classrooms to allow students to build a better understanding of science through engaging in language activities (Hand, et. al., p. 57)", I do not believe that this means that students need to create written products that are turned in or are done individually.  In fact I contend that this goes counter to many of the points made in the book.

I agree whole-heartedly with the "language to learn" philosophy as opposed to the "mechanistic position" of memorizing vocabulary lists prior to scientific work.  In Modeling Physics students construct their own terminology to describe their observations and negotiate it with their peers through consensus building.  When the time is right, the technical terms are shared and negotiated into student's conceptual frameworks through more consensus building (Just-in-time vocabulary).  In this way students "have much greater connections to science" by building "from what they know (Hand, et. al., p. 59)".  In the Modeling approach argumentation is critical in the negotiation process as students "discuss, debate, and defend their results and conclusions (Hand, et. al., p. 59)."

Similar to the Modeling methodology, the Science Writing Heuristic approach puts students off the traditional school game.  "I don't like the SWH. . . . I know how to play the game and score well on tests.  Now the rules have changed.  It isn't about playing the game, it is about learning, and I have to work just like everyone else.  Just memorizing doesn't work anymore and I have to work at this.--Student Perspective (Hand, et. al., p. 77)"

Something that intrigues me about this approach is that SWH is documented to close the achievement gap for traditionally low-achieving students.  I believe that Modeling methodology  would do likewise however these students don't typically make through to physics.  Physics-first though would achieve these gains.  But how do schools go from being Biology-Chemistry-Physics to being Physics-Chemistry-Biology?  I just don't see how this is done logistically given staffing abilities.

Like Modeling methodology, learners in the SWH approach construct knowledge and critique knowledge through public negotiation and argumentation (Hand, et. al., p. 86).  Personally I know that I need to become more effective at getting students out of the "school-game" mode and get them to critique knowledge.  They present but very seldom do they attend and critique no matter how much prodding and cajoling from me.  This is a real weakness that I need to address.

The major difficulty I have with Modeling is getting students to ask questions of one another, to be critical of others' statements and to be self-reflective.  Too often they look to me for the answer.  They are trapped in a "school mind-set".  I need to uses strategies to avoid the pitfalls and to pull students out of this trap.  I need to ask more questions.  I need to deflect questions to other students "What do you think about what Susie said? (Hand, et. al., p. 209)" . . ."How could you find that out? . . . What do you think would happen if you tried that? . . . Why is that important? (Hand, et. al., p. 115)".  Another issue is knowing how hard you can push students with this stance. I must be able to accurately gauge their level of frustration and to be able to talk them down (get them to breathe, to laugh) (Hand, et. al., p. 115).  Whenever I am asked for an answer I do my best to state my mantra of "I have never seen that before.  What do you think?"

Sometimes students pose ridiculous questions that have no connection to what we are investigating just to test my resolve at not playing the school game.  I need to refocus with these questions . . .

  • "How do you think this question will help you build your knowledge on the topic?
  • Do you think that is a good question?
  • How does your question compare to the criteria for a testable question?
  • Ask other students what they think of the question and prompt the poser to defend his/her question."  (Hand, et. al., p. 105)


In order to have greater success in whiteboarding situations (negotiating and arguing), I need "to develop ground rules for public negotiation of ideas" so that I can bring "students into the process. (Hand, et. al., p. 107)  The authors state "that students will invest a great deal more energy and thought into their discourse when it is being evaluated, challenged, shaped, or supported by their peers rather than by you, or in addition to you as teacher (Hand, et. al., p. 108)."

Perhaps I should have the students come up with the standard for a good presentation and then they can measure (and so can I) their performance against the standard.  If students refuse to play by these new ground rules then there has to be consequences and follow through.  The suggestion that the authors present is that the offenders are offered a choice:  choose how you intend to learn new rules or segregated old rules (solitary worksheets, reading guides, etc.).  

Quotes:
"Providing correct answers doesn't make students correct their conceptual framework to match the teacher's conceptualization."--Hand, et. al., p. 79

"Students . . . need to know that anytime they share their ideas, they need to be prepared to discuss them . . . they can't get away with 'I don't know' as an easy way out. . . . (it) will be followed by more questions to get at what they do know.  Thinking is required!"--Hand, et. al. p. 107

"An indication of the success of teacher questioning strategies is how well students begin to ask questions of themselves and of others."--Hand, et. al. p. 115

"(A)ll must think and defend thoughts."--Teacher's Voice, Hand, et. al. p. 116

"At the end of the SWH the student/scientist/lawyer will need to convince a classroom of peers that his or her argument explaining the question is valid based on the evidence, which the student build from the data."--Hand, et. al. p. 128

"The story built from the data that leads to a claim is the evidence."--Hand, et. al., p. 129]]><![CDATA["Negotiating Science--The Critical Role of Argument in Student Inquiry" by Hand, Norton-Meier, Staker and Bintz]]>Sat, 23 Feb 2013 05:30:33 GMThttps://fizzicks.weebly.com/home/negotiating-science-the-critical-role-of-argument-in-student-inquiry-by-hand-norton-meier-staker-and-bintzChapters 1-3:  

This book completely validates the Modeling Philosophy in Physics.  Its all about student-centered classrooms.  The teacher of the student-centered classroom realizes that the most important thing that must be accomplished is that students need to express what they are thinking.  

The authors state that students are constantly negotiating with new information.  If we want to know what they are learning then we need them to demonstrate their understanding through verbal and written expression.  It is in this way that we can create activities that will cause them to confront their misunderstandings in a way that makes their negotiated meanings open to public discourse.  One of the most important keys in this process is creating a non-threatening environment.

On its face it seems like creating a non-threatening environment would be an exceedingly easy thing to do.  However to do this the teacher cannot be perceived as the expert or the arbitrator of right and wrong.  If he/she is then the environment is automatically threatening.  However if the teacher is able to successfully deflect all such questions to other members of the class to arrive at consensus then it will be non-threatening.  The second key is to provide many grouping opportunities for students to express their negotiated understandings.  

So far I highly recommend this book.

Here are some quotes:
"(T)eaching should be driven by your students' learning."--Hand, et. al., pg 1

"Our job as teachers requires us to think more deeply about learning and understand . . . how our students learn."--Hand, et. al. p 200

"(L)earning is an activity that is undertaken by the individual over which we as teachers have no control. . ."--Hand, et. al. p. 32

"If we as teachers have no control over what is going on inside an individual's head, then we have to be able to engage with learners in ways that feature their knowledge at the center of the conversation."--Hand, et. al. p. 29

"The first thing that we teachers need to do is to determine what students know about a topic"--Hand, et. al. p. 30

The teacher cannot be seen as the givers of knowledge.  "(During) information sharing sessions it is essential that opportunities be built in for students to make connections between new information and the big ideas of the unit. . . . We as teachers need to plan opportunities for public negotiation between new information and the big ideas."--Hand, et. al. p. 43


"Student-centered learning strategies are not about students guessing what is in the teacher's head, but rather the teacher finding out what is in the students' heads."  Questioning strategies are critical for airing this information.  "We have to retrain the students to make public their reasoning strategies and how they have constructed their arguments. . . . (W)e need to get out of the way.  We talk far too much. . . . (P)ose questions that require students to move beyond recall . . . When students answer the question, two things have to happen:  We have to stop making judgments about the answer . . . we are (not) the arbitrator (of knowledge) . . . ask 'Why?'" and there must be group consensus.  One way to keep from passing judgement is by pushing this responsibility to the students, "Mary, is John's answer O.K.? Why?" . . . If students agree to an incorrect answer then the teacher must be adept enough to "pose a question that will challenge the answer. . . . Change to their ideas occurs because the students make the change, not because we want or tell them to. . . . Give students time to talk through possible answers with their colleagues. . . . (C)hallenge the students.  Do not let them know they have arrived at the answer--test the confidence they have in the answer"--Hand, et. al. p. 48 and p. 55

Students "will resist the fact that you are not going to supply the answer.  They will complain that you are not doing your job.  However, what does become obvious quickly is that the quiet students tend to find a voice because now they do not have to fear being wrong.  The low-achieving students who do not play the memory game well can now become involved because the questions are not about right or wrong but about the bid ideas."--Hand, et. al. p. 49

"Students are engaged in individual negotiation of meaning" all the time, as they are sitting quietly in their seats.  "If we as teachers constantly ask questions that have only one acceptable answer, then individual negotiation by students in never challenged." . . . Group work shifts negotiation from private to public.  "We want students to put their ideas out there to be challenged by their peers. . . . (S)mall group work is an ideal, nonthreatening way for all students to be involved in working with their own ideas.  Remember, individuals control their own learning process and teachers structure the learning environment."--Hand, et. al. p. 51 & 53





]]><![CDATA[June 05th, 2012]]>Wed, 06 Jun 2012 03:34:48 GMThttps://fizzicks.weebly.com/home/june-05th-2012Picture
My daughter and I were lucky enough to catch a few glimpses of the transit of Venus.  Yesterday I was trying to figure out how I was going to view it safely and I was also trying to figure out exactly when I should start to view it.  I had to school myself on UTC, time zones, and day-light savings time (thanks internet!).  I also had to decide between a number of viewing methods.  I had already eliminated welding glass and solar glasses so the options were either pin hole camera method or a projection method.  I decided on a projection method so that my whole family could see it together.

My daughter was assaulting me with questions--"How are we going to see it?  Why can't we look at the sun?  But I thought you said we can't look at the sun?  Why is this such a big deal daddy?"  I decided to buy myself some time so I asked her to go to her room and calculate how old she will be the next time Venus transits the sun a little over 105 years from now.

Unfortunately she lost all of her math ability somewhere between the bus stop and her bedroom sometime within the last week and so I had to reteach her how to add several multi-digit numbers.  Although I didn't end up buying myself any time, evidently I did make an impression on her.  "I will be 112 years old!"  I asked her if she knew anyone that old.  Her grandparents and her great-grandma will be happy to know that none of their names came up.  She couldn't think of anyone or anything that old.  My wife and I affirmed that neither could we.  So I tried again, "So why is this such a big deal?"  And my daughter said that more than likely we wouldn't be alive anymore and that perhaps her kids or grand-kids would see it.  Yeah!

In the picture above my daughter is pointing at the small shadow of Venus.  This was at about 7:30 pm EST.  Mostly we had overcast skies but we had about a dozen instances where the clouds broke.  We could even discern at least five sunspots.  My daughter and I went to school earlier in the day to get a couple stands, variable angle clamps, and rods to support a regular pair of binoculars.  I affixed the binoculars to the support rods with some rubber bands and left the lens covers on one side of the binoculars so that the light only went through one side.  It worked perfectly.
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