STEM Clubs

School: Hanham High School Status: Completed Date Started: 25 Nov 2009 Date Completed: 20 Nov 2009 Keywords tags: nasa moon walk esa charlie duke lecture astronaut apollo 16 Workshop Technology Space Science Rockets Physics No of pupils: 0 Number of views: 1949 Related Resources:

Pupils at Hanhan High School ASSEC were invited to attend the Charlie Duke Lecture at the Leicester Space Centre.

After a start that no pupil in club has ever seen before (they had to be on the minibus at 6am in the morning!) we set of on the long journey to Leicester. A small stop at the motorway services and 3 hours later we arrived safely and were greeted by STEMNET and Space Centre Staff. Nine schools in total from around the UK were present and the morning's activities were all spaced themed. STEM ambassadors were at hand to do all the hard work of leading the workshops and entertaining the pupils all morning so all of the teachers were able to engage in some excellent CPD provided by STEM and Space Centre staff.

The workshops pupils were involved in were as follows:

10.00 - 12.50 3 x 50 min workshops supported by STEM Ambassadors:

o Astronomy activity workshop
o EADS Astrium Mars Rover activity
o National Space Centre workshop

After lunch staff and pupils were treated to an excelllent theatre show called 'We are Astronomers’ narrated by David Tennant. More information about the NSC's award-winning theatre and state-of-the-art shows can be found at http://www.spacecentre.co.uk/Page.aspx/224/SPACE_THEATRE/
'We are Astronomers' is also showing at other theatres and 360s around the UK - we definitely recommend you see the show if you get the chance - it was absolutely amazing! (see http://weareastronomers.com/ for other venues near to you).

After the show we were then taken into a lecture theatre for the event of the day - Charlie Duke's Lecture on his accounts of his time as an astronaut for NASA. Charles Duke is a retired USAF Brigadier General and was a United States astronaut and engineer for NASA. He is the youngest of only twelve people who have walked on the moon. He spoke with passion, humour and verve about his adventures and really was an inspiration to the pupils assembled. He's clearly an advocate of STEM technologies and mentioned several times the importance of education and technology for the future of mankind. Using original NASA pictures and video footage he took us on a complete voyage from training through lift off to living on the moon's surface for 72hrs and back to Earth again.

After his talk pupils were allowed to ask him questions all about how he saw the future of space travel, how hard the training was and whether or not he believed in aliens!

After photographs, pupils were allowed to have a brief tour of the museum before leaving for the long trip back home (not quite as long as the 3 days it took to get to the moon though!).