By Ms. Colette Ohotnicky
Astronomy is, especially within the education of youth, a mostly forgotten science. Yet this school has chosen to study it in our freshmen year science course. Why? As the classical curriculum strives to return us to our roots and the fundamentals of a liberal education, we turn our eyes to the sky. Since men first walked upright across the earth, they have been obsessed with the heavens. It is the realm of the mysterious unknown which our wonder strives to know. It is the realm of the perfect gods, towards which we direct our longing love. The very nature of the sky fills us with wonder, desire, and awe. Though we live in an age when lights take the dark away from the night, we must return to that fundamental love of the mysterious star-filled sky.
I have been amazed and incredibly grateful to see first-hand that the modern world has not crushed the instinctual wonder of our students. They are just as fascinated by the stars and the planets as were the ancient astronomers we studied. One evening they were able to view Jupiter and Saturn through a telescope, as well as find the Big Dipper. I had excited high schoolers interrupt their chatting, stare up at the sky, and turn to me with jubilation in their voices as they showed me they had found the North Star. Some stood with their faces towards the heavens, just exclaiming, “That is so cool!”
Even in the classroom, these students discover the wonder of the sky. We have been learning the Ptolemaic theory of the solar system. We’ve been striving to understand the apparent loop-di-loops which the planets perform in their orbits. I saw the intrigue spark in faces when they observed and were curious about the patterns they observed. I saw the light come on in several students’ eyes when they understood how epicycles explain retrograde motion. Other students have been highly intrigued by how obsessed the ancients were with circles and spheres. Why must all the orbits be circular? Why must the earth be a sphere?
These are all ancient questions, and the light which appears in these students’ eyes is the same light which caused mankind to turn towards the heavens in the first place. Our starry-eyed wonder is but our eyes remembering the moments when we stood staring up at the starlight sky.
So let me return to the question I asked at the beginning: why have we chosen to study astronomy? I firmly hold that wonder is the beginning of any study of science. We begin in the shocked surprise in beholding beauty. JPII students are beginning here, filled with starry-eyed wonder. From surprise at beauty, the realm of science guides us to answer the questions about the truth of that beauty we have beheld.
Join us, and start your own journey into wonder by filling your eyes with the stars! It is an adventure of beauty and knowledge which no one should ever miss!
Ms. Colette Ohotnicky teaches science and Latin at St. John Paul II High School. Read her full bio here