Curriculum Day 2 - Wellington

As a part of the Leadership component of the fellowship, we have to attend 4 workshops to develop our understanding of the Nature of Science and the curriculum.

As a part of our second workshop, we visited Carter Observatory. If you are in Wellington and are looking for something to do, I would highly recommend visiting here. They have incredible displays, a planetarium and an amazing telescope.

Carter Oservatory



Carter Observatory is New Zealand's longest-serving national observatory. Carter's name commemorates Charles Rooking Carter, who gifted £2,240 from his estate to the Royal Society of New Zealand to establish an astronomical observatory in Wellington for the benefit of the people of New Zealand. Parliament established the Carter Observatory in 1937 and it opened its doors in 1941.
Carter became a base for astronomical research in New Zealand. Work began with solar investigations and when new staff joined during the 1970s it expanded to include variable stars, galaxies and asteroids. Carter Observatory became New Zealand's National Observatory in 1977.

 The Thomas Cooke telescope is a beautiful, historic 9 3/4-inch refracting telescope that is routinely used as the main telescope for visitor viewing at Carter.

The building has been lovingly restored and is a heritage building.

A cabinet containing hundreds of lantern slides from observatories around the world

 A transit telescope which were essential items used for early time keeping.

These are real Meteorites! You can touch them and pick them up, they're unbelievably heavy! This was one of my highlights.

This is a real piece of the moon. It is a slice of a meteorite that came from the moon. The moon has been pelted with meteorites over it's history as it has no atmosphere to protect it. As meteorites strike the moon, chunks fly off into space.

Before I knew this, I asked if it came from the Apollo 11 mission to the moon. The Curator said "No, the samples that the Astronauts brought back with them are extremely valuable and even  the smallest piece is too expensive for small organizations to buy. 

(From Wikipedia) "Moon rocks collected during the course of lunar exploration are currently considered priceless. In 1993, three small fragments from Luna 16, weighing 0.2 g, were sold for US$ 442,500. In 2002, a safe, containing minute samples of lunar and Martian material, was stolen from the Lunar Sample Building. The samples were recovered; in 2003, during the court case, NASA estimated the value of these samples at about $1 million for 285 g (10 oz) of material."