Introduction

Rainbow Photo credit and copyright: Terje O. Nordvik

Hello everyone! I feel like I should share with you a little about me, so that when reading any posts by me in the future you can have some understanding of the who and the why. I'm currently a 30 year old science student and teacher. For eight years I have taught science (mainly Astronomy) to 5th and 6th grade students all over southern California. I am currently back in school with hopes of obtaining a masters degree in Observational Astronomy. With that degree my goal is to begin a traveling astronomy outreach education program that will hopefully jump start the California science standards. Most 6th graders here in my town of Victorville, CA are moving on to junior high without much preparation in science. Most if not all cannot explain how we have seasons. There are several reasons for this outcome, the first and most important is that classroom teachers are pressured to raise scores in other subjects like math and reading (very important subjects also) while science takes a back seat until junior high. I feel since I have a passion for this subject I might as well use it for good, rather than evil. :-) But fear not fellow readers, while it may seem that my astronomy blurbs might destroy a bit of the mystique and magic of an event or object you see from time to time, it can also bring in more majesty than it had before. Take this picture of the rainbow for instance, it is very beautiful and awe inspiring if you know nothing about how it's created. But, even with the knowledge that it is created by refracted white light from the Sun by millions of water droplets can still be amazing. Especially if you add this: Although light from the Sun is in fact many colors and wavelengths it can't help but be perceived by us as a white light because it is moving way too fast to be separated by our brains. The second that light from the sun hits the falling droplet of water in a rainstorm the light bends and is refracted, spreading it into its many colors. I know, perhaps this is redundant information from our days in 5th or 6th grade, but did you know that that every rainbow on Earth contains all the information about what our Sun is made of, from every specific element to how old it is and how long it has before it dies? A crazy way of looking at it is, the rainbow actually is the Sun's DNA. And when one of those colorful photons of light from that rainbow hit the cone cells in your eye it is literally ending what is on average a million year plus 8.5 minute journey for that photon! More on that journey in another post. ;-)
So in conclusion I can only hope that my blogs at least entertain you, and maybe teach you something you didn't know. I am of course constantly learning and I love to tackle questions even if I don't know the answers. So fire away on those questions and as we say in the Astronomy community, "Keep looking up."

Thank You.

Sincerely,
Todd Gonzales