Using Tolkien's Calendar as a Resource in Science Classes

Title: 
Using Tolkien's Calendar as a Resource in Science Classes

Presenter:
Javier Vaquero-Martinez (Universidad de Extremadura, Spain)

This was a poster presented at the 5th Shaw-IAU Workshop on Astronomy for Education, organised by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE, http//astro4edu.org).

Tolkien's legendarium has been very popular in the last years, mainly thanks to the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit films, but recently thanks to the series The Rings of Power. It is well known that Tolkien was very thorough in creating this world, with languages, maps, and even calendars for the different folks in Middle-Earth. In this contribution, we explore the use Tolkien's calendar in science class, comparing it against our calendar. This can be used to further motivate students, increase curiosity about not only how calendars work but also about what rules our current calendar follows, as well as the reasons behind it, which are very much related to Astronomy and Earth Sciences. We show that Tolkien calendar outperforms our calendar slightly, despite other drawbacks.

About the 5th Shaw-IAU Workshop on Astronomy for Education:
This year’s Shaw-IAU Workshop on Astronomy for Education focuses on two themes: one special practical astronomy education topic and one scientific topic. The special topic is astronomy education outside the classroom, looking at how astronomy can be taught in a diverse range of environments such as science centers, planetaria and youth clubs. The scientific topic is planetary atmospheres, both in the solar system and exoplanets as well as our own Earth. The workshop was organised by the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (http://astro4edu.org). More details can be found on: https://astro4edu.org/shaw-iau/5th-shaw-iau-workshop/schedule/

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