Hey! Welcome back to DadLabs. I am your host Daddy Tro. Today we are going to look at some software that will help you and your kids get interested in space. Specifically we are going to look at Google Earth, Google Moon, Google Mars and NASA web application that helps you find satellites in the night sky, an iPhone application that helps you find satellites in the night sky, and two iPhone astronomy programs. Stick around, I will tell you all about.
Today's episode is sponsored by BabyBjörn. My guess is that you've used Google Maps before. Well, in addition Google offers a program called Google Earth which allows you to zoom in and out on our planet. You can find addresses such as your own, and kids love to see their house from space, or maybe go find Grandma's house or the beach you went to last summer.
More importantly, this program sets a child up to spatially understand what we mean when we say we live on a round ball that just floats in space. Google Earth also comes with Google Moon and Google Mars, starting at five years old, kids can manipulate these programs much as they would a video game, flying around, finding hidden features like pictures taken from the Apollo spacecraft, or actually seeing an astronaut on the moon. This feature is also available for Mars allowing you to find the Mars rovers, and for my money which is free, it's something that I can really dig into and enjoy with my kids.
Next up, finding satellites in a night sky. On a clear night, you can often see satellites with your naked eye as they fly overhead and if your timing is right, you can see extra big satellites like the space station or even better yet, the space shuttle as it's docked to the space station.
In order to predict when certain satellites will be overhead, you can go to NASA's website and find a calculator that will show you the next visible sighting at your location. If you prefer more graphically rich program, check out GoSatWatch. It's an iPhone app from a company called go GoSoftWorks. It helps you to find satellites in the night sky. It will track the satellites either onto a globe or show them from your perspective in the night sky proper.
It will show you satellites such as the international space station, the satellite radio satellites or even satellites from other countries and finally let's look at some astronomy programs that function as planetariums.
Among the many offerings on the iPhone, two standout. First, StarWalk is a graphically rich program that my six year old and his dad really enjoy. What I love about this program is that the creatures associated with the constellations appear as you point to a particular one.
They fade in and fade out and they help you and your kid to better remember the night sky. GoSkyWatch is an equally rich program, and is on par with StarWalk. It has an amazing feature that uses the iPhone's accelerometer.
You just point your iPhone to the night sky, and it shows you what you're looking at. Well, that's all this time for DadLabs. You can comment on this video over at DadLabs.com, join the forum, and have an even deeper discussion about the video. You can get some great t-shirts. DadLabs: Taking Back Paternity, show your dad pride.
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