"What if the Earth stops rotating? "
Oops. There you go.
Kids' online classes started sometime back and they are reading the notes sent by teachers, watching the videos and attending live classes. While reading the lesson on Earth-Our planet, Kutty asks, "What is the meaning of rotation? " and after I explain it she goes on to ask what if earth stops rotating.
Three pairs of very curious eyes are directed at me, I can see them hanging on to any word that might come out of me. I rack my brain for old Physics lessons, while trying to come up with an answer. "Well, there will be no day and night for one thing. And in space, nothing can remain stationary, everything moves, rotates.."
I know that sounds feeble.
"That's okay... but what if they don't move?"
I am thinking of universal forces, but they may not understand even if I try explaining, and what do I explain? Balu comes to my rescue.. "What happens to the top when it stops spinning? It falls, right? Similarly earth will fall off.."
I cannot support that. "Where will earth fall? There is no floor.."
"And also, look at the fan- it stops rotation, but it doesn't fall down"
"That's because it is fixed.. nothing is fixing the earth.."
The debate goes on for a while and again they look at me. I say, "Frankly, I do not know. Till now the earth has never stopped rotation, so there is no way to know, is there?"
That doesn't satisfy completely, but at least they move on from that topic. Phew!
Three pairs of very curious eyes are directed at me, I can see them hanging on to any word that might come out of me. I rack my brain for old Physics lessons, while trying to come up with an answer. "Well, there will be no day and night for one thing. And in space, nothing can remain stationary, everything moves, rotates.."
I know that sounds feeble.
"That's okay... but what if they don't move?"
I am thinking of universal forces, but they may not understand even if I try explaining, and what do I explain? Balu comes to my rescue.. "What happens to the top when it stops spinning? It falls, right? Similarly earth will fall off.."
I cannot support that. "Where will earth fall? There is no floor.."
"And also, look at the fan- it stops rotation, but it doesn't fall down"
"That's because it is fixed.. nothing is fixing the earth.."
The debate goes on for a while and again they look at me. I say, "Frankly, I do not know. Till now the earth has never stopped rotation, so there is no way to know, is there?"
That doesn't satisfy completely, but at least they move on from that topic. Phew!
Next is English. They are supposed to write ten sentences on elephants in the notebook. Ha! I am saved, they know things about elephants. I ask them to write on their own, soon they finish and hand over the notebooks triumphantly for me to check. Well, in between there are regular sentences like largest land animals and herbivores. But mostly, it goes like this- "There are wild and domestic elephants..("they are never domestic, honey..they are tamed so humans can make use of them.."), among the domestic elephants, Guruvayoor Valiya Kesavan is very famous.. people who take care of elephants ("mahouts, baby") sometimes sleep between their legs..elephants sleep while standing..they communicate by hitting trunk on ground..elephants keep their baby between legs while moving so other animals do not attack them.. elephants have musth flowing near their ears..boy elephants ("male, not boy!") fight and the one who loses goes inside forest and is very dangerous..boy elephants born without tusks are very powerfuller (!!) and are known as...("amma,what is 'mozha' in English ? I refer Google and say 'makhna' ) okay, are known as makhnas...
So what do I say to these? This is knowledge they have collected from various sources and mostly correct also. How do I discourage them and say that they should limit the sentences to flat facts. I cannot bring myself to do that, so I ask them to write the flowery facts in another book and limit the notebook with flat facts. They finish it and off to play.
Another day...waiting for more questions, more study adventures :)
