Author: Lenny Hort
Plot Summary: How Many Stars in the Sky begins with a boy asking himself how many stars there are in the sky. He suspects his mom knows, but because she is at work, and his dad is asleep, he decides to try to answer the question on his own. He tries counting them in his treehouse, but loses his place because new stars keep rising, and old ones set. When he comes down from the treehouse, his dad is there, and the boy learns that he can't sleep either. Together, they try to find a place where they will be able to count every star. They drive into the city, but there the lights are outshining the stars. They drive all the way out into the country, but see so many stars that the boy knows it would be impossible to count them all and he falls asleep under them. The story ends with the boy waking up to see only one star in the sky, the sun.
Posted In: Epistemology, Philosophy of Science
Plot Summary: How Many Stars in the Sky begins with a boy asking himself how many stars there are in the sky. He suspects his mom knows, but because she is at work, and his dad is asleep, he decides to try to answer the question on his own. He tries counting them in his treehouse, but loses his place because new stars keep rising, and old ones set. When he comes down from the treehouse, his dad is there, and the boy learns that he can't sleep either. Together, they try to find a place where they will be able to count every star. They drive into the city, but there the lights are outshining the stars. They drive all the way out into the country, but see so many stars that the boy knows it would be impossible to count them all and he falls asleep under them. The story ends with the boy waking up to see only one star in the sky, the sun.
Posted In: Epistemology, Philosophy of Science
Discussion Questions
Question Area One: Where does our knowledge come from?
- What are some examples of places one might go to or people one might seek out to get knowledge?
- What are the benefits and disadvantages of going to these different people or sources for knowledge?
- Self: Attempting to find answers on our own or by thinking about them
- Family: Siblings, parents, grandparents, guardians
- School: Teachers, classes
- Online: Google, news sites, social media, etc.
- Given that we rely on others for a lot of our knowledge, is it possible there is something we are missing out on? Is it better to appeal to authority, or is there value in trying to answer questions yourself? What might the value be?
- In the book, the boy thought about asking his mom for the answer because she knows a lot about the stars and the sky, but since she wasn’t there he tried to find the answer for himself. Was it a good thing that he tried to do this? Why?
Question Area Two: Are there questions we cannot answer?
- Do you think we can answer the question of how many stars there are in the sky? If so, why? If not, why not?
- What kinds of questions are we unable to answer? Does this mean that all of these questions don’t have answers?
- For example, there may be a certain number of stars in the sky, but maybe we are not able to answer the question ourselves, although there is still an answer.
- There are different questions, some of which we may be able to find an answer to either ourselves or from others. However, other questions may have have a final answer at all. Sometimes, when we do not know something, no one else may have the answer either!
- Does a good answer to a question always mean that there is a single answer? Are there some types of questions with many valid anwers?
- For example, what about the question “What is the best ice cream flavor?”? It seems unlikely that we will agree upon a response, but is someone else wrong if they give a different answer?
Question Area Three: Is it okay to not know something?
- Is it bad for the child that they do not know how many stars are in the sky?
- Are there positive ways of thinking about questions we don’t know the answer to?
Activity: Can we count all the grains of sand?
As we saw in the book, it may seem like an impossible task to count all of the stars in the sky. Yet, there are scientists who spend a great deal of time doing this, and they come up with answers even if it may not be through direct counting. This activity invites students to think about how exactly they might come to know something.
Materials: a medium-sized container (such as an empty jam jar) and enough sand to fill the container
Steps:
- Fill a container with sand, and seal it with the lid.
- Give each table group a chance to see the jar and ask them to discuss the following questions:
- Would you be able to count the number of sand grains in the container?
- If we told you the exact number of grains in the jar, would you accept or trust our answer? Why or why not?
- How many grains of sand do you think are in the jar and how did you come up with this answer?
- Do the math to get a rough estimate of how many grains of sand it in the jar (average sand grains per cup x number of cups in the jar). Bring the class back together to tell them this number and see who got closest.
- Tell them how you got the answer and discuss the extent to which they believe this answer is correct.
Contributed by Patrick Walsh, University of Washington
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