Flexibility ? now where is Stretch Armstrong when you need him ?

There comes a time when all your best laid plans go out the window.  Yeah, it happens, and for me it was a reality check. 

Had a troop meeting where we had to move from our normal location, away from our class room, projector, tables and chairs.  ugh, I was going to help the boys learn a few things about Declination, you know, the difference between Magnetic North and Grid North ... for the Orienteering Challenge we have coming up in Jan ... 

Then the reality set in... we had 25 boys attend that night, and no projector, no class room, no tables, and no chairs... 

What did we do... well, I pulled out my trusty Night Sky Constellation Map, and my trusty green laser pointer... and outdoors we went.  It was dark, enough for the stars to shine, even with the light pollution from the city and church.  We still saw some wonderful stars and constellations.

Now the boys were outside, the air was crisp, and it was a great feeling to just run about and play.  But something happened. I started to tell stories about the stars, and some of the other boys shared their stories. 

Did you know back long ago, before there were eye charts to check your vision, generations ago used the star cluster of Pleiades , the "Seven Sisters" as a way to check if you had good vision or not ?  See if you go out, away from the city lights or any commercial set of lights, you can see the beauty of the night sky.  If you looked at the Seven Sisters, you should be able to see 7 bright dots... if you could see them all, well you were going to have good eye sight for the hunt or be a scout. 

Boys started to tell stories of they learned about the stars, some talked about their computer, and cool programs that chart the sky, where they can zoom in and out of star formations, and see billions of miles out into space.  Others were just curious what that bright star was, which at the time was Jupiter, not a star... which to many started talking about the gas giant and how it was almost a star :) 

Then the real test came... where is North.  All the boys started to point in different directions, some high, some low, some east, west, south, but none of them found north.  Here is where we started to learn about the night sky, and how the stars move across the sky, which I had to remind them all that our Sun is a star, and the stars & constellations moved very similar to our sun across the sky.  Rising in the East and setting in the West.  That gave them a clue.  While we were out there, only for 30 or 40 min, some noticed how Orion was starting to rise on the horizon... which they concluded that that was the general direction of East... FINALLY, the logic worked... 

They started to look North, and found a side ways "M" in the sky, which was Cassiopeia,  I told them that the point in the middle of the "M" generally points toward the North Star... 

Eureka, they found the North Star.  I also explained that the Big Dipper and the Cassiopeia are almost opposite sides of the north star, they dance around the north star, in a counter-clock wise motion.   This way they should always have a reference where the North Star is, even if the big dipper is hiding beyond the horizon. 

When you see the "Ah Ha" moment, and the boys get it... those are some of the best memories I have in Scouting.   It was great... it was fun... and boy they loved the Laser Pointer...  wait till you get the question on which star is that, is that a Galaxy ?  can you show me "the Horse" constellation :)   then you know, the reward of sparking the interest, that they one day will sleep out in the open, or sit on top of a pic-nic table and point to the stars and share stories about how if you can see the 7 stars of the Pleiades, you have pretty good eye sight :) 

Thanks for reading and may the trail you walk on leads you to great adventure.