Celebrating Female Astronomers

August first is a day to honor women in astronomy, so it’s a great time to teach kids about the many female astronomers, computers and other experts who have shaped the way we see the universe.

I was trying to figure out if there’s a reason Women’s Astronomy Day is August 1, but the best I could come up with is that it’s the day German astronomer Caroline Hershel (1750 – 1848) discovered her first comet. She was known for discovering nebulas and comets, and has one named after her, 35P/Herschel-Rigollet. She was also the first woman to receive the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society.

I don’t know if that’s the reason, but we’ll call it that.

If you’re a little low on education in famous female astronomers yourself, I’m here to help. That information on Caroline Hershel came from ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, which has a page full of short bios of female astronomers you can check out.

Astronomy.com has a PDF you can download with stories about 10 female astronomers we all ought to know more about, from Katherine Johnson (known as one of the “Hidden Figures” who computed for NASA and was instrumental in calculating the trajectory for the first manned space flights) to Vera Rubin, who helped discover dark matter. It’s a little outdated but still good basic information to start with.

Or you can learn about Maria Mitchell, who discovered a comet in 1847 and was the first female member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as the first astronomy professor at Vassar. She’s known as America’s first female astronomer, and the website for the Maria Mitchell Association has a great lesson plan and information for students wanting to learn more about her.

There’s also a lot of great information about the female astronomers of Harvard University from the late 1800s and early 1900s. Annie Cannon is one of the most well-known, as she catalogued more than 20,000 stars and her system of classification was adopted with few alterations by the International Astronomical Union in 1910. And Henrietta Leavitt discovered how to tell how far stars are from Earth based on their brightness.

For older students, choosing one of these scientists to learn more about would be fruitful and remind them that science has rarely been an exclusively male domain, we just don’t normally take the time to learn about the women who did much groundbreaking work. It’s time to change that!

[Photos: Katherine Johnson via NASA, Maria Mitchell via Maria Mitchell Association, Annie Cannon via Carleton.]

Lacing is a great fine motor activity, and most kids go through a phase where they enjoy working with lacing cards. It helps promote focus and is a great quiet activity for kids to do in the car or to fill time in the classroom. And of course knowing how to lace is the beginning of knowing how to sew, which is great for all kids to learn (more on teaching kids to sew here).

There are lots of ways to make your own lacing cards. This one is just a pin but it’s easy to make lacing cards with any shape a child is into using cardboard and a nail to poke the holes. This could be fun for letter and number recognition or spelling the child’s name. Or try this version from Hey Azka, which uses a hole punch to make bigger holes so you can lace with shoe laces.

You can also just do lacing cards with paper, but it’s a great idea to print them on card stock and/or laminate them to make them sturdier for little hands. Homeschool Share has a set of alphabet lacing cards, which are free with email signup. Deceptively Educational has a set of number lacing cards with numbers 0 to 10.

Picklebums has some basic shape lacing cards, too.

Living Life and Learning has a bunch of cute printable lacing cards, including back to school designs, shoes kids can lace and learn to tie and ocean themed lacing cards. She also has tips for making your own lacing cards.

A Rose Tinted World made their lacing cards with craft foam, which makes them a little more durable than paper and you can cut it more easily than cardboard. They used a die cutting machine but you can also cut shapes by hand.

I also love the cat and mouse cards from Seam Whisperer. They also have some spring themed designs. So cute!

If you want to make lacing cards that are more open ended, check out this tutorial form Pretty Life Girls to make lacing cards that are more like geo boards. Theirs are made with wood but you can also do this with cardboard, craft foam or card stock.

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