People Tree

Hello blippers! Hope you've had a good start to your week. I always like to get Tuesday over as I teach classes all day then have an extra-curricular Astronomy session after school. My little Astronomers are great, they are mostly junior school pupils around 13 years old, but are studying GCSE Astronomy for fun as an extra class once their timetabled lessons are over for the day. Today we were learning about how a librarian working in the third century BC calculated the circumference of the Earth using a shadow and an army!

I don't think my local library runs to staff like that, but Eratosthenes worked in the renowned Library in Alexandria and he must have been some pup! He was amazingly accurate as well, estimating the Earth's circumference to be around 45,000 km (it's actually just over 40,000 km).

After school I walked over to Bangor Castle and had a look in the courtyard, as the building was closed for the day. I remembered about this sculpture by Owen Crawford. He carved this from an oak tree that had blown down in the park after a storm. When I was at home full-time looking after the offspring I went to watercolour classes taught by Owen. He is a bit like an arty Bear Grylls and we had such fun in his lessons. Now that I am teaching full-time those days seem like a distant dream!