Astronomy Outreach Bangalore International School

As a part of Astronomy Outreach program ABAA had organized Astronomy sky show and a lecture for Bangalore International School children on 12 December 2008. Geeta who happens to be a teacher in BIS had scheduled the dates for the event. Nagraj, Ravi, Anand & Me (Naveen) had attended the outreach program. This was the first outreach program of the series of Astronomy outreach programs which has been scheduled for International year of Astronomy 2009 event.


We had around 30 children and their teachers who were present for the event, We were told that BIS is a school with different curricula and format of teaching would be different. Well this was very evident from the interaction with the children. The amount of knolowdeg about things is very huge for that age group.

Evening started with a slide show and talk by Nagaraj on the topic "SOLAR SYSTEM". School had organized a LCD projector and a screen in schools computer lab. School children enjoyed the talk and the slide show. The level of understanding of the subject of Astronomoy was very high which reflected it the type of question which the kids asked in the Q & A session. Later we came to know that Astronomy is one of the subject that study in depth.

Next we shifted to the school field beside the school basket ball court where we had assembled 8" Telescope. Students were asked to form a queue to see through the telescope. As there were lights around the school the only desired objects were Moon, Venus and Jupiter. First we focussed the telescope to Jupiter as that was the first object which was due to set, Students were able to see 4 satellites of Jupiter.

Next Telescope was set to venus which was beautiful and we were able to see the crescent shape distinctly. School children were amazed to see the crescent shape of planet Venus.


Our Telescope viewing sessions ended with Moon, Students were able to see the breath taking view of Moon and its craters.



Thanks to COD- Shibani and science teacher Smita for giving us the time slot for Astronomy event in there program and making all the arrangements for the slide show. Special thanks to Geeta Jayanth for scheduling the event.