By the time students reach high school their interests become focused and the turnout is generally lower especially for a first-time event. However, the interest level and knowledge of the students are higher. Such was our first time event at Clements High School in Sugar Land on Thursday April 2nd. I counted 16 students with a couple of parents attending.
The event was organized by the Clements student Astronomy club and sponsored by their astronomy teacher Christopher Turner.
Indoors, starting around 7pm, we had Hari Rao give his life cycle of stars and interactive presentation which included questions to test the student’s knowledge.
We also had a new speaker making her debut as an AOW presenter. New member and HCC student Isabel Steffek followed Hari’s presentation with her presentation on neutron stars. She gave an excellent presentation.
During the telescope viewing, which started around 8pm, we had passing clouds of varying thickness with periods of clear sky in between. This allowed us to view Jupiter.
On telescopes we had:
- Sean Carey with his Takashashi 76mm refractor
- Mac Hooton with his SeeStar smart scope assisted by his brother Rob.
- Don Magdall with his classic Newtonian.
- John Spencer with his classic Newtonian
Tony Wiese with the club’s Televue 127mm AOW refractor
Assisting we had:
- Hareesh Janakiraman
- Thrayee Rao (Hari’s daughter who is a student at Clements)
- Bhavana Sangam
As we were packing up at the end of the event, I remember speaking with Tony about how enjoyable this event was. The teacher mentioned he will talk to the school to see if we can make this a regular event. Our experience with high schools is that on follow up events word gets out and attendance increases but even if we inspire just a few students our efforts are well worth it.
A big thanks to all the FBAC volunteers who attended to make this a successful event.
