WTAF??? My Y2 child has come home with the following in a reading book...

[HeavyBoots]

Astronauts who travelled to the moon needed to wear heavy boots to ensure they didn't float off into space.

This is a reading book (Ginn 360 L7), on transport, in a non-fiction section on space travel.

I have put something in the reading record, but how, how, how could a major educational publishing company let that get past them??? Do we not have science education any more? Arrggghhhh!!!!

What's the point is space boots?
Is it to keep feet warm, help astronauts climb/move and protect from sharp rocks on the ground?

Is it something to do with vacuums, atmosphere, life support systems in the suit

You do have to bear in mind that they'd look jolly silly wearing ordinary little shoes attached to those bulky suits, but I assume that the boots are not just sartorially influenced.

Longer day length doesn't affect temperatures - think of all those scandinavian countries with long long winter days

Longer days in summer do help to make the days warmer, but the main factor is down to the fact that the sun's rays are more 'concentrated'. There are all sorts of other things that affect temperature - such as atmospheric gas concentrations/humidity, but that is the mian one. The fact that the days are longer is also due to axial tilt.

Plants absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen as reactants/products in photosynthesis. Breathing, however, is a process by which gases are absorbed into/removed from the blood across the surface of the lungs. Plants certainly do not have lungs. I am not a biologist, so apologies for any mistakes in my definititions!

Plants do absorb nutrients from the soil, but the 'food' they get in terms of sugars are products of photosynthesis - for which they use carbon dioxide and water.

Gravity is substantially less on the moon. Therefore, you would be able to jump a lot higher and further than on the earth. I haven't done the maths, but I don't think the average person could jump with enough force that they could escape the gravitational pull of the moon entirely, and not end up falling back down eventually.

So what are the boots for?

Radical substitution, I'd really like to know why it is hotter in summer and what's wrong about the plant breathing statement. I'd also like it cleared up about the boots on the moon, did they wear heavy boots? I also have a masters.

It's the term breathing that's wrong, I think. Plants, as Radical says, don't have lungs.

Ah ok so if I say plants absorb carbon dioxide and change it into oxygen that would have be correct?

I thought that in winter we are tilted away from the sun on our axis - so that the rays are at a more acute angle, but also our bit of the earth is actually further from the sun than when we are tilted the other way?

I know the whole earth isn't further away from the sun.

It's hottest at the equator, and there they never have the very long summer days that we do. The hot mediterranean has much shorter days in summer than the cooler north of England, and Scotland.

I am confused.

gin Don't you mean short winter days in Scandinavia, not long?

Plants do respire, as do all living things. In respiration cells take in oxygen, it reacts with glucose to give energy and carbon dioxide is produced and "breathed" out. In plants, during the day, some of the cells also have another chemical reaction going on. That is photosynthesis, where carbon dioxide is absorbed and via a reaction with water, using sunlight as energy, glucose is produced. This glucose is the food for the plant (which is why plants don't get food from the soil). Plants do get water (mainly) and a few nutrients from the soil. But plants don't have to be in soil if they can get water and nutrients in other ways, which is why we have hydroponics and some plants grow in trees in the tropics.

In the winter, the sun is never directly overhead, it's lower in the sky.

Um - "plants absorb carbon dioxide and change it into oxygen" - nope. They absorb carbon dioxide, and they give off oxygen - that doesn't mean they change one into the other, which would be very confusing and miraculous.

Do other schools still have "rotten apples" (ORT stage 6) - resulting in conversation about why rotten apples make the horse drunk? That was an interesting one with DD(5)

oh dear - I was never academic - think I'll just leave it til they learn it at school..

The images on this page (couldn't be fagged to read all the text) explain the seasons pretty well.

www.astronomy.org/programs/seasons/

I will leave it to someone far more intelligent than I am....

radical...any more websites?

I have a dd who is really into science and I am busilly researching to remember long forgotten facts. and a whole lot of stuff I never learnt in the first place.

My eldests kindergarten teacher explained the power of pyramids to the DC's and even got them to sit in one (a small cardboard one) so they could feel its energy. I was very

This was also the same teacher who asked what the capital of Africa was . She was great otherwise and the DC's loved her.

I want to read the joke about physics and philosophy students

It's not really a joke:

www.phys.ufl.edu/~det/phy2060/heavyboots.html

redwhiteandblue - I use this website a lot for animations. Like a lot of teaching resources on the internet, some of it is not so good. A lot is really useful though.

www.kscience.co.uk/index.htm

There are also some very good animations on:

www.absorblearning.com/

Threads like this make me love Mumsnet
I too have a science degree but had to struggle to work out what was wrong with radical's list. I was fine on the apostrophes though. I think that means my local, two teacher, state primary was better than my posh Oxbridge college :)

That's cute.

''Two students asked if I was going to continue asking them about things they had never studied in the class. ''

I have to say I am a bit worried about my daughter getting past year 2 when it comes to litracy. Never been my strong point. I also have dyslexia and it is rather embarrassing when your spelling gets corrected by a five year old

Houseworkprocrastinator - but just think how smug clever DD will feel. Actually, I think it is good for DC to have dyslexic adults in their lives. There are a couple of teachers at DS's school who are dyslexic - the DC accept that they are allowed to question Mr X or Mr Y's spellings if they seem strange, and that if no-one knows they look it up together.

I agree children shouldn't think that the adults around them are perfect.

My daughters teacher last year was dyslexic and knew I was, it made me feel better when hurriedly making notes in her reading diary and such. This years teacher doesn't know me at all yet so I looked up how to spell three words this morning when writing a note to ask for vegetarian dinners :)

I do get rather embarrassed about my spelling as I consider myself otherwise an intelligent-ish person and feel my writing makes me look a bit stupid although I would never judge anyone else on their spelling.

My DD had a supply teacher occasionally who was dyslexic. Unfortunately, this teacher wasn't secure enough in herself to allow any questioning of her spellings

Housework, this teacher's attitude made her look far more stupid than if she'd just got some spellings wrong and let people/kids ask or suggest. The children had no respect for her at all, and dd (in y6 at that point) would check everything the woman said with me when she got home.

I tried to have a conversation once with the woman. She was soooo bolshy and defensive when she realised I was the mum of a y6er...

I suspect no one would think you were stupid at all.