His suspicions that UFOs are more than a hoax began while he was in graduate school at Montana State University. He’s among the UFO researchers who have shared their expertise with high school students. (Courtesy of Dennis Gavrilenko)īut physics professor Kevin Knuth, at the University of Albany in New York, thinks there is something - or someone - observing us from above. “I find it unlikely that aliens traveled thousands of lightyears to get to Earth just to fly around super fast and not make themselves known.” Deer Valley High senior Dennis Gavrilenko said he has a “childhood fascination” with UFOs and aliens, but said he’s waiting for solid evidence. “I still have a childhood fascination with aliens, but now I know that there must be … solid evidence to support aliens before I truly believe they are real,” said Dennis Gavrilenko, a senior in Adkins’s astronomy and space exploration course this year. He has students consider the sheer size of the universe when deciding whether alien life forms would bother conducting experiments on humans or jamming the military’s radar systems. Acton, California, astronomy teacher Jeff Adkins uses an illustration showing the scale of the universe when discussing with his students whether aliens may have reached Earth. UFO conspiracy theories teach students to have an open mind, “but also to have a skeptical filter,” said Jeff Adkins, an astronomy teacher at Deer Valley High School in Antioch, California, near Oakland. Related How Neil deGrasse Tyson Got a Chicago Senior Through the Pandemic ‘Studying these things for decades’ They read news reports of alleged sightings - like that of Travis Walton, a lumberjack whose 1975 account of being abducted by aliens was featured in the 1993 film “Fire in the Sky.” Then they present the skeptics’ side, offer their own opinions and lead their classmates in a discussion. His students learn the Drake equation, a formula for the probability of finding intelligent life elsewhere in the universe. He hooks students with tales of close encounters and uses hands-on projects and 3-D models to explore the math and physics involved in aliens traveling for tens of thousands of years to reach Earth. The upcoming release of the report is perfectly timed for the search-for-extraterrestrial-intelligence unit Black teaches each summer. With both Republicans and Democrats interested in the report’s findings and respected news shows like “60 Minutes” following the topic, the possibility that otherworldly beings are patrolling our atmosphere is no longer just the stuff of sci-fi movies and paranormal conventions. Highly trained military pilots admit they are taking the sightings of these unusual aircraft seriously - and think others should, too. The report, combined with Navy pilots’ recent accounts of aircraft displaying unusual movements, provide fresh material for teachers who find that questions about alien visitors are a great way to engage students in science. The bill asked for detailed reports of UAPs and knowledge of whether “a potential adversary may have achieved breakthrough aerospace capabilities” that might harm Earth, or at least the U.S. Marco Rubio-sponsored provision directing Naval intelligence to uncover what they’ve been tracking in the skies. But tucked into the more than 5,500 pages of legislative text was a Sen. When former President Donald Trump signed a $2.3 trillion funding bill in December, educators were eye-balling the $54 billion in relief funds included for school reopening. “If you have a current event that comes along, as a teacher you want to weave that in,” said Black, who teaches science at New Haven School, a private boarding school for girls in Saratoga Springs, Utah. And with the federal government’s report on “unidentified aerial phenomena” - or UAPs - expected as soon as this week, they’ll have new grainy videos to analyze and debate. Researching more famous accounts of UFO sightings and purported alien abductions with students is how he’ll be spending the summer. Sign up here for The 74’s daily newsletter.Īt least that’s how he gets his students’ attention before revealing that it was only a sundog - a bright light caused when the sun’s rays refract through ice crystals in the atmosphere. Get essential education news and commentary delivered straight to your inbox.
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