Since September 2021 the Astronomy Club has been running for the whole Secondary School (G6-G12). A fairly large group of about 25 students meet every Monday here at school as part of our Enrichment Programme. As of Term 3 (end of April), our dedicated teacher Mr Emmanouilidis, who runs the club, is starting a similar course (‘Our Solar System and Beyond’) for our Primary School students (G2-G5).
Observing the Moon
On the various meet-up, the students carry out really interesting and exciting observations. The first group of students used our brand new Celestron 8-inch telescope after school to observe the moon and take their first really cool pictures.
Students also had the opportunity to observe and capture the last full moon of winter 2021-22. They shared their knowledge with the students of the Debating Club who happened to be finishing their classes just in time for our observation; their questions sparked quite interesting discussions. The picture of the full moon through the telescope was taken by Nils and Litesh.
Measurement of the Earth’s Circumference
On 21 March 2022, we have done an interesting experiment on the roof in collaboration with 4 other schools. An experiment done 2200 years ago by Eratosthenes to measure the circumference of the earth.
21/03/2022, 12:25, Spring Equinox – Students were able to measure the size of our planet using very simple tools and basic geometry. The experiment was organised in cooperation with three schools in Italy and one school in Croatia – we were all online at the time of the measurements (12:25 local time). The results were remarkable: The students measured a circumference of 43345 km, while the actual figure was 40070 km. Eratosthenes had come up with ~46000 km 2200 years ago.
We proved that learning does not only happen in our classrooms, but also out in the real world. The best part of the experiment was seeing how the G10 students, who have more advanced knowledge of physics and maths, worked with the younger ones from G6 and G7 to explain everything to them.
Hearing the Universe with Gravitational Waves
“Hearing the Universe with Gravitational Waves”: The 2nd scientific seminar organized by the Astronomy Club, took place on Monday, 21st of March. Stamatis Vretinaris, Astrophysicist and Researcher from the Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands, opened a new window to the way we see the Universe; Gravitational Waves. The students were amazed by this topic and had several questions for him.
At the end of his talk, Stamatis shared with our G10s his career advice on studying Physics and Maths, skills that our students need to be equipped with for the job market and how to never lose their curiosity for our world.
