Sidewalk astro just now at primary school

[starfinder]

Just a brief report on a "side walk" astro event which I participated in on Fri night. It was part of the island-wide Shell Astro Challenge for primary and secondary schools.

I'm not sure what the terms of this contest is; I think the school with the most number of students viewing wins. Anyway, I was asked to help out at a school to show the kids the stars and I chose the First Toa Payoh Primary School. I think some other Singastro forum members were helping out at other schools.

I brought a 80mm doublet apo (WO) mounted on a LXD-75 goto GEM, plus a generic 20mm long eye-relief wide-angle eyepiece, and used a 2x barlow for 55x magnification. I was ably assisted by Siu Yung, who had also helped out at the sidewalk event at Vivocity in early May.

I think altogether around 300+ primary school kids, teachers and parents looked at the crescent Moon (just before First Quarter) through my humble 3" scope, from around 7.30pm to 10.30pm non-stop. It was very satisfying showing them the Moon. I was surprised that even primary 2 and 3 students were intently studying the Moon's features. Many of the adults were engrossed too.

Common reactions were quite cute, such as: "why so many holes?", "whoa... so many dots", "i can see the Moon!", "looks like soap", "the dark side must be dark because its colder", "is that the Moon or the Earth?" (parent's question), "i know they are craters, you said it 100 times already", "why no water on the Moon?", "whoa whoa whoa so bright", etc.

I tried my best explaining the origin of craters and the crescent appearance. I think I saw in many faces wonder and amazement, and sparks of great interest in what they were looking at. One very intelligent-looking kid, maybe primary 6, looked intently at me after seeing the Moon as if he had some great eureka moment. That may have been the start of a life-long interest in science and astronomy in particular. Maybe a future astrophysicist.

There were about 3 other scopes set-up, two on alt-azi mounts. One, a C-8 on a GEM, was not operational until around 9pm+, since the mount was sent over to the school by one of the coordinators without the counter-weight and shaft. The poor NUS High School volunteer students had to wait whilst doing nothing from 7pm, until the primary school teacher in-charge drove all the way to collect these two missing items. When it did arrive, Saturn was shown through it for about an hour.


Here are two photos of the event.

[VinSnr]

Great work Gavin. Always a joy to me when I see this hobby being spread around the young ones and to all the other members of the public.

[starfinder]

Hey tks Vincent!

This was my first time volunteering at a "sidewalk" event. It was quite tiring manning the scope continuously for 3 hours, but really satisfying as it brought simple joys to so many people, young and older. I suppose as amateur astronomers it's something we can do well.

Some points to remember for sidewalk events are I think: suitability of height of eyepiece for targetted audience, suitability of eyepieces: long-eye relief, large eye lens, wide field of view, and suitability of astro objects.

[superiorstream]

A similar event took place at Chung Ching High School (main)and staroptics Robin was there to provide both the telescopes and provide help and teach about astronomy and astrophotography.Good work Singastroian!

[Sam Lee]

I was with Mike and Terry Twins and SP Astro gangs at the Innova Primary school providing telescopes and support. The official counter counted 300+ students and family members viewing thru the scopes.

The kids are funny, while looking at the Moon, some of them even ask, why doesn't it have eyes and nose !

[Tachyon]

We were at Elias Park Primary School. It was packed! So many children and parents....

[Lee]

We were at Elias Park Primary School. It was packed! So many children and parents....

Thanks Tachyon & YK Chia for the wonderful talks & the VJC students help ! According to the teacher more than a thousand was counted viewing thru the 4 scopes. The weather was pretty good, got at least 2 solid hours of clear sky.

[alvinsclee]

There is a similiar astro-promoting in my school this morning. We were having a carnival to help raise funds for Children's Cancer Foundation.

One of the activities was having a portable planetarium rented from Singapore Science Centre. I was the presenter for the kids and adults who drop by the planetarium. I concentrated on Orion, Scorpius, Cassiopeia and Big Dipper... besides the general introduction to the fun of amateur astronomy.

Ya, very tiring... especially having to be inside the rather stuffy dome for a stretch of 5 hours. Free sauna

[Airconvent]

there were activities all over the country and I was stuck at a company farewell dinner for one of the bosses...sigh...
Nice to hear great participation all around...good work guys (and ladies). hopefully the activity here will correspondingly increase!

[VinSnr]

Hey tks Vincent!

This was my first time volunteering at a "sidewalk" event. It was quite tiring manning the scope continuously for 3 hours, but really satisfying as it brought simple joys to so many people, young and older. I suppose as amateur astronomers it's something we can do well.

Some points to remember for sidewalk events are I think: suitability of height of eyepiece for targetted audience, suitability of eyepieces: long-eye relief, large eye lens, wide field of view, and suitability of astro objects.

I hope one day I can do a simple video astronomy using the Hyper Mallincam Plus colour camera. I did once before when Dempsey Road was still a semi pub area. A lot of drivers got down their cars just to see although most are semi drunk as well and really fit into the description of "seeing stars"

Anyway, video would get rid of the need to queue and everyone just look at the screen.