The Astronomy Club, Gravity
“We should do astronomy because it is beautiful and it is fun. We should do it because people want to know. We want to know our place in the universe and how things happen.” John N. Bahcall
When the Astronomy Club was added to ARIS, it had several goals. One of them was to remind students of the wonders above. The topic of astronomy itself is discussed very lightly in the IGCSE syllabus, thus making it slowly fade away from the thoughts of students. However, if someone was to mention things like star dust, nebulae or black holes to a student, automatic sparks in their eyes would be seen followed by a ton of questions. That itself is an indicator of the immense but silent curiosity they have for the cosmos. This leads us to the second goal, and that is to quench that curiosity and make the best out of it.
The club also helps with any maths or physics problem a student has in an interactive and fun manner, as there will be a lot of presentations involving simple physics. In addition, we are honoured by many international astronomers and astrophysicists regularly visiting us to explain scientific theories and famous formulae in the simplest possible ways. University and career recommendations will always be on the line.
The much respected Prof. Jacob Ashong, who is a retired scientist that worked with NASA and founder of the Ghana Planetarium, will be running the club along with our own Mr. Mansur Abubakar, who is the ARIS Physics teacher, in secondary.
On the first meeting of the Club, students spoke about the rare super moon lunar eclipse that took place during the morning of October 29th and its causes. They later went on to vote for a topic that would be presented by a student the following week. The chosen topic was Gravity and Stars, as students appeared to be extremely curious about the subject.
The second meeting was one full of excitement and information due to the spectacular presence of another great scientist in the person of Dr. Rhodri Evans. A researcher and author from Cardiff University, United Kingdom, Dr. Evans is currently working on a component on the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) which belongs to NASA. He commented on the presentation then went on to give his own about the same topic from one of the books he had written entitled 30-Second Physics. The time had eventually run out yet students could not stop listening to him, resulting in an extra thirty minutes stay in order to listen to all what Dr. Rhodri had to say!
The astronomy club in ARIS certainly is a young one but shows huge promise. The expressions of the students during a presentation surely tells it all!
Written by;
Bashhar Byrouthy
President Astronomy Club, ARIS