STEM Clubs

School: The Community College, Bishop's Castle Status: In progress Date Started: 25 Aug 2009 Keywords tags: No of pupils: 0 Number of views: 22077 Related Resources:

Monthly stargazing evenings which have involved between 6 and 26 pupils. This has been a chance to let pupils use the science club telescope, binoculars and MySky and look at constellations, planets, galaxies, star clusters and nebulae. We had a guest speaker who talked about his experience of astro photography and we have had backing from local telescope supplier Evergreen optics (who supplied gift packs for the pupils who attended on the first night).

Problems we have experienced:

- weather!!! It has been difficult to plan 2 hours worth of activities for if the weather is bad as well as 2 hours of activities for if it is clear. We have run quizes, constellation dot to dots, presentations, guest speakers etc.

- focusing the pupils. I've produced observation checklists to focus the pupils when they go outside (it is difficult to see them when we go outside in the dark).

We will continue to run these events as we have a core of interested pupils and may think about some of the pupils sitting a GCSE in astronomy in the future.