FUN WITH SCIENCE- making my own telescope

It was on the beautiful morning of 25th July, 2014 when we assembled in the A.V. Room for our workshop on hands-on activities related to space exploration. Students of classes 9 and 10 were selected to attend this workshop.

We began with an introduction by Mr. J. Parruck, the resource person, who has long experience of teaching young students science across schools in the country. He uses innovative methods in the classroom, as nature trails, star-gazing and as science clubs .

We were asked to pick up a card from a bag. Little known to us was that each card represented an animal. According to the instructions given we had to select a group leader next. After that, we were asked to communicate as the animals printed on our cards would! Soon the whole room sounded like an animal farm with all the mooing quacking etc filling it.

Then started the main activity of making telescopes within an hour by just reading the instruction manual. This was a novel experience and everyone was excited about it. The sight of the children exploring their potential by learning how to fix lenses, working as s team and also preparing the P.O.P was a joy. After an hours running, fixing and hammering, all the groups were ready with their self- made telescopes. We later looked at them in some pride as did our teachers. Our Principal, Mrs. Tania Joshi then declared the winning group with the best telescope.The finer points of the working and the principle of the telescope was then explained to us.

We later made our own sextant, an astronomical instrument used to determine the latitude and longitude at sea by measuring angular distances, especially the altitudes of sun, moon, and stars. It was a learning experience we shall cherish for a long time.

Like every good thing comes to an end, so did this session. We enjoyed ourselves. We appreciate our Schools initiative to involve us in such a fun learning session. The session was a great success and we look forward to such sessions in the future because practical learning is better than theoretical learning, any day!

SAKSHI, XC