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Orion the Hunter: The Story in the Winter Sky · Faithfully Explore!

• 0:00
  Laura: Explorers, did you know there is a giant in the winter sky?
• 0:05
  Laura: Not a real giant.
• 0:08
  Laura: This giant is made of stars.
• 0:11
  Laura: On clear winter nights, if you look up, you might spot three bright stars in a row.
• 0:19
  Laura: They look like a sparkly belt across the middle of the sky.
• 0:23
  Laura: Some people call those three stars Orion's Belt.
• 0:29
  Laura: For thousands of years, people have looked up at the same group of stars and said, "I see something."
• 0:37
  Laura: But guess what?
• 0:39
  Laura: Not everyone saw a hunter.
• 0:42
  Laura: Some cultures looked at those same stars and saw a canoe.
• 0:47
  Laura: Some saw a turtle, a hand, or other powerful sky pictures.
• 0:53
  Laura: Same stars, different stories.
• 0:57
  Laura: I'm Laura, and this is Faithfully Explore, where we travel the world through stories, movement, games, and big ideas.
• 1:08
  Laura: Today, we're continuing our special series, Sky Stories: Wonder Written in the Stars, and we're exploring Orion the Hunter.
• 1:19
  Laura: So bundle up in your imagination coat, pull on your pretend stargazing mittens, and whatever you do, don't let your hot cocoa float away into space.
• 1:31
  Laura: Let's faithfully explore.
• 1:33
  Faithfully Explore! Intro: faithfully Explore!
• 1:35
  Faithfully Explore! Intro: is the name.
• 1:38
  Faithfully Explore! Intro: Learning together is our aim.
• 1:42
  Faithfully Explore! Intro: Beliefs around the globe we'll track, filling up our Belief Backpack.
• 1:50
  Laura: Explorers, a constellation is a group of stars that people connect into a picture.
• 1:57
  Laura: From Earth, they look close together, like dots on a connect-the-dots page.
• 2:03
  Laura: But out in space, those stars can be very, very, very far apart from each other.
• 2:11
  Laura: That's how constellations work.
• 2:13
  Laura: They are patterns we see from Earth.
• 2:17
  Laura: And Orion is one of the easiest patterns to find because of those three stars in a row.
• 2:25
  Laura: In the Greek sky picture, those stars become Orion's belt.
• 2:30
  Laura: Once people imagined the belt, they could build the rest of the hunter around it.
• 2:36
  Laura: Bright stars above the belt became his shoulders.
• 2:40
  Laura: Bright stars below became his knees or feet.
• 2:44
  Laura: And just below the belt, a fuzzy little patch of light was imagined as part of his sword hanging at his side.
• 2:54
  Laura: Put it all together, and the stars formed the shape of a hunter standing tall in the winter sky.
• 3:02
  Laura: Orion is especially famous in the Northern Hemisphere during winter evenings.
• 3:09
  Laura: That is why people often call Orion a winter constellation.
• 3:15
  Laura: When nights are long and chilly, Orion can shine high in the sky.
• 3:21
  Laura: Now, before we meet the Greek Orion, let's learn a few star names.
• 3:29
  Laura: One bright star in Orion is called Betelgeuse.
• 3:34
  Laura: Betelgeuse is not from the movie you may have heard of.
• 3:38
  Laura: Betelgeuse is a red supergiant star.
• 3:42
  Laura: That means it is enormous and reddish.
• 3:46
  Laura: Another bright star in Orion is Rigel.
• 3:50
  Laura: Rigel shines blue-white and is also very bright.
• 3:55
  Laura: So Orion has a reddish star and a bluish star.
• 4:01
  Laura: Below Orion's Belt is a fuzzy-looking place called the Orion Nebula.
• 4:08
  Laura: A nebula is a huge cloud of gas and dust in space.
• 4:14
  Laura: The Orion Nebula is a place where new stars are forming.
• 4:20
  Laura: So right inside this ancient sky story, there is real science, too.
• 4:25
  Laura: Stars, colors, distances, and a place for tiny baby stars.
• 4:32
  Laura: Okay, they are not tiny.
• 4:34
  Laura: They are giant balls of gas, but still adorable in a very fiery way.
• 4:41
  Laura: Now that we know the star pattern, let's hear the story that many people in ancient Greece told about it.
• 4:51
  Laura: In Greek mythology, Orion was a mighty hunter.
• 4:56
  Laura: Now Greek myths have many different versions.
• 4:59
  Laura: That happens with stories that are told again and again for hundreds or even thousands of years.
• 5:06
  Laura: One storyteller says it one way.
• 5:09
  Laura: Another storyteller adds a scorpion.
• 5:12
  Laura: Another says, "More drama, please."
• 5:16
  Laura: And then boom, a new version.
• 5:19
  Laura: So today I'll tell one version.
• 5:22
  Laura: Orion was strong, bold, and very proud of his hunting skills.
• 5:29
  Laura: He was the kind of person who might walk into a room and say, "Did someone need the best hunter in the world?"
• 5:36
  Laura: And everyone else might say, "We were actually just looking for snacks."
• 5:42
  Laura: Orion was said to travel with hunting dogs and carry a club or a bow.
• 5:47
  Laura: He boasted that he could hunt every animal on Earth.
• 5:52
  Laura: Now, explorers, when someone says, "I am the best at everything," what do we call that?
• 6:00
  Laura: Boasting.
• 6:01
  Laura: And boasting can get a person into trouble, especially in myths The earth goddess Gaia heard Orion bragging that he could defeat all animals.
• 6:12
  Laura: Gaia did not like that.
• 6:14
  Laura: The animals of the earth mattered to her, so she sent a giant scorpion to stop him.
• 6:22
  Laura: A scorpion?
• 6:24
  Laura: Tiny scorpions already look like they mean business.
• 6:28
  Laura: A giant mythological scorpion?
• 6:31
  Laura: No, thank you.
• 6:33
  Laura: I would be running the other direction.
• 6:36
  Laura: According to this story, Orion and the scorpion fought.
• 6:41
  Laura: Orion was strong, but the scorpion was powerful, too.
• 6:46
  Laura: Eventually, Orion died.
• 6:49
  Laura: The gods placed Orion in the sky as a constellation, and they placed the scorpion in the sky, too, as the constellation Scorpius.
• 6:59
  Laura: But here's the clever part.
• 7:02
  Laura: Orion and Scorpius are on opposite sides of the sky.
• 7:08
  Laura: When Scorpius rises, Orion disappears.
• 7:12
  Laura: It is like the sky is still keeping them apart.
• 7:16
  Laura: Orion says, "Is the scorpion gone?"
• 7:20
  Laura: The sky says, "Not yet.
• 7:22
  Laura: Stay over there."
• 7:24
  Laura: Now, remember, this is mythology.
• 7:27
  Laura: It is a story people told to explain the stars, the seasons, and the way constellations rise and set.
• 7:36
  Laura: But myths often carry lessons.
• 7:39
  Laura: In this story, one lesson might be: be brave, but don't be boastful.
• 7:48
  Laura: Let's do a quick movement break called Hunter, Scorpion, Stars.
• 7:54
  Laura: First, make Orion the Hunter.
• 7:57
  Laura: Stand tall.
• 7:59
  Laura: Put one hand above your eyes like you are looking across the sky.
• 8:04
  Laura: Now make a scorpion.
• 8:06
  Laura: Crouch a little, put your arms out like claws, and open and close your fingers.
• 8:12
  Laura: Now become stars.
• 8:14
  Laura: Jump with both arms and legs out so your body looks like a star.
• 8:18
  Laura: Let's do it faster.
• 8:21
  Laura: Hunter, scorpion, stars.
• 8:25
  Laura: One more time, but extra dramatic.
• 8:29
  Laura: Hunter, scorpion, stars.
• 8:35
  Laura: Beautiful.
• 8:36
  Laura: Award-winning sky acting.
• 8:39
  Laura: Now here is where our Friendship Bridge begins.
• 8:43
  Laura: If you grew up hearing Greek myths, you might look at Orion and see a hunter.
• 8:49
  Laura: But people in other places looked at that same bright star pattern and saw something else, that tells us something important.
• 8:59
  Laura: People bring their own stories to the sky.
• 9:03
  Laura: Let's travel to New Zealand and Maori sky knowledge.
• 9:10
  Laura: In Maori astronomy, this same group of stars is connected with Te Waka o Tamarēreti or the canoe of Tamarēreti.
• 9:23
  Laura: Now, remember in Greek stories, these three bright stars are Orion's Belt, but in this Maori sky story, those three stars are seen as three brothers sitting together in a great celestial canoe.
• 9:41
  Laura: A canoe in the stars.
• 9:44
  Laura: Isn't that beautiful?
• 9:47
  Laura: According to Māori tradition, Tamarēreti was the one who helped place the stars in the night sky.
• 9:56
  Laura: In some stories, he traveled across a dark lake or ocean in his canoe.
• 10:03
  Laura: As he moved through the darkness, he gathered shining stones and carefully placed them in the heavens where they became stars.
• 10:13
  Laura: So when people look up, they could imagine Tamarēreti's canoe traveling across the celestial ocean with the three brothers helping navigate through starry waters.
• 10:28
  Laura: This was not only a beautiful story, it was also practical.
• 10:34
  Laura: Māori people were skilled ocean voyagers who traveled across vast distances in the Pacific.
• 10:41
  Laura: Think of Moana.
• 10:43
  Laura: The stars helped guide them.
• 10:46
  Laura: Watching for Orion's appearance in the sky could also help mark seasonal changes that mattered for activities like fishing, planting, and preparing for the year.
• 10:58
  Laura: Now let's travel to Mesoamerica, where Maya people developed an incredibly deep knowledge of the sky.
• 11:08
  Laura: The Maya were careful sky watchers.
• 11:12
  Laura: They studied the movements of the sun, moon, planets, and stars.
• 11:19
  Laura: Their calendars, buildings, ceremonies, and stories were often connected to what they saw above them.
• 11:28
  Laura: In some Maya traditions, the stars in the larger Orion region were connected with something very different from a hunter.
• 11:38
  Laura: A turtle.
• 11:40
  Laura: In Maya thought, turtles were powerful symbols.
• 11:45
  Laura: A turtle can live on land and in water, so it connects different worlds.
• 11:51
  Laura: Its shell can look like the surface of the Earth.
• 11:56
  Laura: And in some Maya stories and art, a turtle is connected with the beginning of life.
• 12:02
  Laura: The stars some call Orion's Belt, the three bright stars, could be imagined as markings or lines on a turtle's back.
• 12:12
  Laura: A turtle!
• 12:16
  Laura: let's cross our friendship bridge.
• 12:20
  Laura: Let's cross slowly.
• 12:22
  Laura: On one side of the bridge, we have the stars themselves.
• 12:26
  Laura: They are huge balls of gas in space.
• 12:30
  Laura: Some are red, some are blue-white, some are far away from each other, even though they look close from Earth.
• 12:40
  Laura: On the other side of the bridge, we have human imagination.
• 12:45
  Laura: People look up and connect the dots.
• 12:48
  Laura: A Greek storyteller says, "I see a hunter."
• 12:52
  Laura: A Māori storyteller says, "I see part of a great canoe."
• 12:57
  Laura: A Maya storyteller or artist says, "I see a turtle."
• 13:03
  Laura: None of these stories mean the other's wrong.
• 13:07
  Laura: They show that what we see is shaped by the stories we carry.
• 13:13
  Laura: If your stories are full of heroes and monsters, maybe the stars become a hunter and a scorpion.
• 13:21
  Laura: If your people travel by canoe, the stars may become a canoe.
• 13:26
  Laura: If your community teaches through animals, maybe the sky holds a turtle.
• 13:33
  Laura: The sky is the same, but people bring different memories, lessons, and questions to it.
• 13:43
  Laura: It's game time.
• 13:49
  Laura: Welcome to Constellation or Not.
• 13:54
  Laura: Here's how it works.
• 13:56
  Laura: I will say something.
• 13:57
  Laura: You decide if it is a real constellation or if I made it up.
• 14:03
  Laura: If you think it is real, shout constellation.
• 14:07
  Laura: If you think I made it up, shout not.
• 14:11
  Laura: Ready?
• 14:13
  Laura: Round one.
• 14:15
  Laura: Orion the Hunter.
• 14:18
  Laura: Constellation or not?
• 14:24
  Laura: Constellation.
• 14:26
  Laura: Yes, Orion is one of the best known constellations in the night sky.
• 14:33
  Laura: Round two.
• 14:35
  Laura: The three-toed alien.
• 14:38
  Laura: Constellation or not?
• 14:45
  Laura: Not.
• 14:46
  Laura: As far as I know, there is no official three-toed space alien.
• 14:51
  Laura: Although I would absolutely listen to that episode.
• 14:55
  Laura: Round three.
• 14:58
  Laura: A canoe in the sky.
• 15:00
  Laura: Constellation or not?
• 15:08
  Laura: Constellation.
• 15:10
  Laura: Yes, Mayans believe canoe shapes connected the stars in the Orion area.
• 15:16
  Laura: Round four.
• 15:19
  Laura: A giant backpack.
• 15:22
  Laura: Constellation or not?
• 15:29
  Laura: Not.
• 15:30
  Laura: But if you ever discover it, please invite me to the observatory.
• 15:36
  Laura: Round five.
• 15:38
  Laura: A turtle.
• 15:40
  Laura: Constellation or not?
• 15:47
  Laura: Constellation.
• 15:49
  Laura: Yes, the stars some call Orion's Belt were connected with turtle imagery in Maya traditions.
• 15:57
  Laura: Give yourself a round of applause.
• 16:02
  Laura: Today, we explored Orion the Hunter and discovered that one group of stars can hold many stories.
• 16:11
  Laura: In Greek mythology, Orion is a hunter placed in the sky with Scorpius, the scorpion, far away from him.
• 16:21
  Laura: In Maori sky knowledge, Orion's Belt can be part of a great star canoe.
• 16:28
  Laura: In Maya traditions, Orion's Belt is connected with a turtle.
• 16:33
  Laura: So what do we put in our Belief Backpack?
• 16:37
  Laura: The way we see something is shaped by the stories we carry.
• 16:43
  Laura: That means two people can look at the same thing and notice something different.
• 16:50
  Laura: You might look at a rainy day and see a ruined recess.
• 16:54
  Laura: Someone else might see puddles for jumping.
• 16:58
  Laura: You might look at a new kid in class and see someone unfamiliar.
• 17:03
  Laura: Someone else might see a future friend.
• 17:06
  Laura: Just like we connect the dots in the sky to see a turtle or a hunter, our brains connect the dots in real life to make sense of things.
• 17:17
  Laura: If a friend is quiet today, we might connect the dots and think they're mad at me.
• 17:23
  Laura: But what if we're missing some stars?
• 17:26
  Laura: What if they are just tired?
• 17:29
  Laura: The dots we choose to connect change the story we tell.
• 17:33
  Laura: So this week, for your challenge, try being a story detective.
• 17:40
  Laura: When you and someone else see something differently, pause and ask, "What story might they be carrying?"
• 17:49
  Laura: Maybe your friend is nervous because they've been left out before.
• 17:54
  Laura: Maybe your grown-up is tired because they had a hard day.
• 17:59
  Laura: Maybe your sibling is upset because something that seemed small to you felt big to them.
• 18:07
  Laura: When we understand someone's story, we build a Friendship Bridge, And just like constellations, bridges help us connect what looks far apart.
• 18:19
  Laura: Thank you for joining me for another adventure in Sky Stories: Wonder Written in the Stars.
• 18:26
  Laura: The next time you see three bright stars in a row, maybe you'll think of Orion's Belt, or a canoe, or a turtle, or a hand.
• 18:39
  Laura: Or maybe you'll create your own sky story.
• 18:44
  Laura: I'm Laura, and this has been Faithfully Explore.
• 18:47
  Laura: Until next time, stay curious, stay kind, and keep exploring that wonderful world around you.
• 18:54
  Faithfully Explore! Outro: Faithfully Explore!
• 18:57
  Faithfully Explore! Outro: is about you.
• 19:02
  Faithfully Explore! Outro: Let's grow kinder together it's true!