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Group 7 lights up @ ASTRON
| Submitter: | Paula Fusiara |
| Description: | “Mom, for school I need to prepare and give a talk about a book, but I don’t want to talk about Harry Potter, everybody is talking about Harry Potter, I want something different but don’t know what”- said my daughter during Ascension Day. “Have you already read the one I gave you some time ago? Seems to have an interesting story, something about a telescope, not sure exactly” – I answered vaguely just not to trigger any suspicion. “Oh that one! It’s something about your work in it as well! Yes, it was a very interesting story… but ugh, I don’t remember that much of it” – she said excited but a glimpse of doubt has slipped on her face and her smile has diminished rapidly leaving signs of worry. “Then read it once again. You will freshen it up and have more information for your talk. Maybe you will find a nice fragment that you can read aloud to your class and you can immediately mark it and practice it as well” – I said encouragingly. A week later: “Mom, can you ask your boss whether I can take my class to Astron and give a book talk about “Het Logboek” in the telescope pleaaaaaaaaaase?”- those big cat-like begging eyes embraced by those fluttering, amazingly long eyelashes touched the soft spot and melted my heart. “I will, but you ask your teachers first, deal?”. And there they were. One and a half months later, on 18th of July, 29 eleven-year-old pupils from group 7 from Lindelaar primary school in Westerbork, accompanied by their teachers and few parents streamed through the ASTRON front door and took over Hooghoudt room for the whole morning. Amazingly quiet, with eyes wide open they were listening… but not to the talk about “het Logboek” – it was given halfway June - but to a talk I prepared. Interestingly enough, it was not about mechanics but about light. Déjà vu… Although it’s been more than a decade since I stood in front of a classroom teaching (back then English) to children for the last time, it felt like yesterday. One hour of “light” literally and figuratively, filled with loads of interactions, TPR (total physical response) activities which involve children and require active participation. Children learned about wavelengths by making waves themselves by using long rope; they have split white light into rainbow in self-made spectrometer; they have experienced the action-reaction of how it feels and what it takes to be a jiggly hot gas atom, and what happens when two of highly energized atoms collide with each other; they experimented with balloons and stretch bands to grasp the concept of expanding universe and what effect it has on travelling light that reaches our radio telescopes. Not to mention spectacular vacuum experiments with inflating “chocolate kiss” sweets, and the working of LOFAR. However, it’s not that the children came to ASTRON unprepared! At school they learned a little bit about James Webb Space Telescope beforehand as well, and were busy for the whole week making drawings of it. The latter were put under strict scrutiny of our colleagues from NOVA. Their great taste in art has revealed 4 distinctions and 1 grand prize. The 5 prizes comprised of JWST lego set (sponsored by NOVA) and WSRT lego set (sponsored by ASTRON), and the book Het Logboek for the winning drawing. To enthuse kids even more, Tammo Jan took one group to the Dwingeloo Radio Telescope where he explained the workings of Pulsar, our solar system and let them perform the Doppler experiment and, not to forget, interact with the Science Hub model telescope. At the same time, the other group under the supervision of Mark and my own person was busy soldering the ‘swaying light’ PCB during which they experienced the importance of reading with understanding. The positive energy and excitement was filling Hooghoudt, to an extent that one of the children even said to her parents “I like it so much, I’m going to solder a telescope and can we put it in our backyard?!”. Soldering was a hit. Some children took the unfinished sets to finish soldering at home by themselves. Maybe some of them will come back in few years’ time for an internship, for the seed of enthusiasm for soldering, technology and astronomy has been sawn… It was an unforgettable morning not only for me but especially to these kids, seeing all these smiling faces leaving ASTRON, shaking hands, enthusiasm which persisted till they reached back school…For some of them even calculated the distance of one light-year when they were back at school! Great thanks to Mark for his helping hand in soldering activity, thank you Tammo Jan for inspiring telescope tour and experiments in the telescope’s whereabouts. Thank you Marco, Daniele, Frank for the possibility of using the Science Hub model telescope! Roelien, David, Marchel – THANK you for your permission 😊 Big hugs to our colleagues from NOVA: Mirka, Elfi, Daan, Dirk, Eddy, Iannis for their great taste in art and excellent choice of the winners; Jeannete, Ramon: thank you for contributing the JWST lego sets! Last but not least Mischa, thanks for your info, tips and wonderful goodie bags. P.S. A request has already been received for next year… Mission accomplished? 😉 |
| Copyright: | Annemiek Vorsteveld, Karin Boers, Marianne v/d Tol, Paula Fusiara |
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