The last outreach event of the school year 14/15. Frank and I brought the Sun over Covington for Mrs. Henderson’s students. The Sun did cooperate and the students observed the Sun through white light and H-alpha scopes and made drawings of what they saw. They learned about the relative distances in the Solar System by making a scale model of the solar system and walked Earth in its orbit using the poster at the side of the PU and a scale Earth. A great event to close the school year for us!! Click the image to go to the gallery.

Today I went to Veterans Memorial Middle in Covington to bring Space Exploration and Astronomy a little closer to the students. Using examples the students discovered that it does not need a lot of energy to overcome the gravity from Mars’ moons. A study of some of the features of Mars, learning how a telescope works by using our kit, and a movie about waitlessness and liquid finished the program. Great Students and a great Teacher!

This year again we were invited to come to Trickum Middle School and bring astronomy and space exploration to its 6th grade students. This school is the most difficult school for us since we are addressing 24 classes or approximately 660 students with our outreach during the three days with 4 classroom hours each day. So we are handling two classes at the same time. The first half of the classroom hour, one class is outside while the other attends the presentations inside and the second half of the hour the other way around. Monday Frank, Valorie, David and Theo participated, Tuesday David and Frank could not make it so Bob Jacoby jumped in and on Wednesday, Valorie, Mr. Krabs, and me were spearheading the activities while the clouds worked with us except the very last class. Thanks everyone for being there!! Thanks also again to Mr. Patterson, who again this year asked us to come out and bring “the favorite program of the year” to this school. Also thanks to the teachers Ms Kuhl, Peters, and Mr. Lucy, Ewanowski and Masters for keeping the students on their best behavior.

This was our yearly participation in their JAKES Day event. Thanks to Bob Jacoby, David Whalen, Frank Garner and Theo Ramakers for coming out to represent CEA in the largest yearly event that CEWC puts on. We had a large number of visitors to peek at the sun through a light cloud deck and to learn and see how telescopes work and how to identify of rocks come from earth or out of space. Unfortunaltely the clouds doubled up and made the sun disappear later in the event. Some of the kids and adults were very interested and will show up at our observing sessions and maybe even at our meetings.
Thanks Bob, David, Frank and Theo to show CEWC that we really appreciate what they do for us.
Clear skies,
Theo Ramakers

It was time again to bring some astronomy to McConnell Middle school in Grayson. Frank could not make it so Bob jumped in and Steve came for two of the classes to help Theo. Thanks guys!. A great school with great Science teachers! In the classroom we took them on a flight through the Solar system, and talked about the moons of the planets giving special attention to Phobos and Deimos. Comparing the gravity on Earth, Mars and Deimos made it clear to the students why you should not move too fast on this moon. Outside they observed the Sun through white light and H-alpha filtered scopes and saw prominences, sunspots and some filaments. Thanks Mrs. Sandidge and Mr. Yoder for inviting us again and bring science a little closer to 129 science students!

We went out to CEWC’s Outdoor Discovery School which hosted the Excellent Montessori school. Frank and Shelby Garner and Theo Ramakers dis some inside presentations and activities for the group. As one of the activities they made a scale model of the Solar system and learned how telescopes work and invert what you see through them. After sunset it went out to the JW Astronomy Field to observe some of the night sky beauties. The students and parents took a close up look at the moon, they saw Jupiter and four of its moons, as well as Mars. They learned how to find the North Star using the big dipper as a helper. A great group again with eager to learn students. Click the image below to link to the gallery.

We had a blast doing solar outreach at the Sharon Shenanigans. Frank Garner, Erik Benner & Marie Lott had 4 solar scopes going all day, sharing the sun with about 800 people in Sharon, GA (a town with a population of 105, so quite a turn out!). It was a beautiful spring day filled with sunspots & proms, great BBQ, pecan pie & sounds of homegrown music – tons of fun!

Van Macatee, Frank Garner and Theo Ramakers went to HLC to let visitors see what’s in the sky at night in April. It was a great night and the very interested visitors had a chance to see Jupiter and the four Jovian moons, Mars, double stars a number fo galaxies, and open and globular clusters. They observed how the seeing went from bad for Saturn when it just started rising, to much better as it was higher in the sky. All in all, they were very impresed with what all is “UP” there.
Clear Skies,

Mrs. Peters did invite us back for the 5th time to bring a science workshop to her classes. This school which is a STEM Academy, an AVID and NASA Explorer School has a great bunch of students who love science. Since we had broken clouds, we only could let a few of the students look at the Sun, but in the classroom we took them on a trip through the Solar System, visiting some planets and their moons, and did some presentations about Mars, Curiosity and Gravity. Thanks to Mrs. Peters for asking us to help her in bringing astronomy and Space Exploration to her students!! Click the image for the gallery.

It was time again for KATE’s Club from Atlanta to come back to CEWC for a day of activities. A cloudy and rainy day, so we had to revert back to inside astronomical activities for the 65 teens, childrens and chaperones. However it worked out very well. some groups made scale models of the Solar system while the smaller once learned that almost all energy comes from the Sun. They learned about space rocks and hunted for Asteroids and identified Meteorites. They looked at some clips from activity on the sun and learned how big stars can get and compare them to the size of our moon and Earth. A great day again. Thanks Frank, Shelby and Theo for being part of this event.