Scarlett Oliva

Life Under The Arctic Sky

Piner high school planetarium
Presentation by Mr. Kruger
9/23/21

On the 23rd of September 2021, I went to a Stem Cafe at Piner high school's
Plantarum. While attending this cafe I learned a lot of valuable information that I can use
further in the future. Mr. Kruger started off the cafe with a little information about the
seasons. I learned that the way I perceived the season was all wrong. Lots of people
think that when it is winter, the sun is further away, and in the summer it is closer and
that’s why it’s hot and cold in those seasons. What many people thought was incorrect,
seasons don’t necessarily have to do about how close the sun is to the earth. The
seasons have to do with how the earth is tilted, and the way the earth orbits around the
sun. The way the earth orbits, and tilts is also why we have a solstice for winter,
summer, spring, and fall. Winter solstice happens on December 21 each year when the
earth is tilted 23.5 degrees away, making it the shortest day of the year. For the summer
solstice, the Earth is tilted 23.5 degrees toward the sun.
The arctic seasons are a little different, they have 2 months of darkness at times
because the arctic is on top of the earth. Meaning that the Arctic receives less heat and
energy from the sun. When there is that period of time where it is all dark you can see
Northern lights or Aurora Borealis. The Aurora Borealis happens when the sun releases
waves that interact with the earth’s magnetic field and is moved to the poles. The
Aurora Borealis shows when light interacts with different gases making an aurora of
colors.
This brings me to the movie Life Under the Arctic Sky. The movie was about a
group of people called the Sami people who are reindeer walkers from the arctic circle.
This group started 10,000 years ago around the last ice age, but over time the Sami
people got smaller and smaller. After a long period of darkness, the Sami people are
ready to migrate the reindeer. First, the Sami people capture the reindeer and separate
them into small groups, which is a key factor in the migration process. Once in small
groups, they start the migrate the reindeer every evening when the snow is crisp and
easy to walk in. The reindeer migrate 600 miles toward the sun, with the help of the
Sami people. The last step of the migration is to get all of the reindeer on a boat to a
summer feeding ground by the coast.
I feel that going to this Stem cafe was a very valuable experience. I love to learn
about new things and by going to this Planitarum show I learned more about how the
Earth, works. I was shocked to know that the way I believed seasons worked was
wrong. All my life I thought summer was hotter because we were closer to the sun, but
that’s not right. Now I know it’s because of the way the sun is tilted. Another thing that I
found fascinating was how the Northern lights are made, I never thought about the
science behind them. At times I have questioned why I could not see the Northern lights
from where I live, but now I know why. I do not live where the magnetic field pushes the
lights.
Sami people are interesting to me because in this day and age I would expect
most people not to like that lifestyle. Many people would prefer to have a job that makes
lots of money. For the Sami people, it is not about that, they are truly just trying to help
migrate reindeer and keep the tradition going, I find that very humbling. I never knew
that there was a thing like a reindeer walking or herding, I always thought all animals
migrate by themselves. Are there people who help migrate all animals? There are many
questions I have about this topic. Reindeer must have a specifically hard migration if
they need lots of people to migrate them. I wonder how the reindeer migrated before the
Sami people. Overall I think that going to this Stem cafe was a really great experience
to learn about new interesting facts, and I would definitely go to more in the future.
By Stefanie Waldek
Published Augest 16, 2021
Northern lights (aurora borealis): What they are and how to see them

This article is about the Northern lights and how it works. The article ”Northern
lights (aurora borealis): What they are and how to see” them relates to the presentation
because Life Under The Arctic Sky explains how the Northern lights work. The northern
lights are made because of the magnetic field around the Earth. The sun shots at the
Earth very fast and what keeps us safe from that is the magnetic field. The magnetic
field places the particles toward the north pole. Those particles are electrically fused
and are put into the wind, which is called the solar wind. Each color in the aurora is
caused by different chemicals interacting with the sun’s electrically charged particles.
The Aurora Borealis happens all the time in the north, but most of the time you cant see
it. The best way to see them is when it is dark and not a lot of light pollution, the months
from September to April are prime time to see the Northern lights.
When the northern lights were first discovered in 1619 people came up with lots
of folk tales, to find out how the lights got in the sky. This relates to the Stem cafe Life
Under The Arctic Sky because the Saim people made up a folk tale that a fox came a
swift their tail upon the sky leaving lights for all to see. People wondered their minds for
quite a while until the 20th century when people started to make more discoveries about
the northern lights. The northern light must have been just a pretty thing to look at, and
not a thing to look into if it took them until the 20th century to learn more about them.
The Northern light is a cool phenomenon that we have on this earth and I would love to
see them one day.