Another Orbit

Universe is too wonderful to not to share with anyone, specially with children. Unfortunately many children discover the beauty of the Universe bit too late, or some never get to enjoy it. That's why I fully support Universe Awareness (UNAWE) - a program which put its heart and soul into inspiring every child with our wonderful Universe, regardless of the social status.

As I complete yet another orbit around the Sun, I couldn't have celebrated my birthday better than with children from an orphanage in Sri Lanka, doing astronomy!

Thank you for everyone who sent in wishes and helped with the event, specially my dad and aunt for helping with cooking, and Kavindi (UNAWE-Sri Lanka), Kaminda, Gihantha, Tijitha, and Janith for helping with the activities.

teaching basic astronomy concepts to kids

tour around the Universe

not only kids, but orphanage staff enjoyed the Universe

lunch time

it's wonderful to see how kids visualize the Universe

kids version of the Universe :-)

kids with UNAWE - Sri Lanka

busy with the "Eggnauts" challenge!

teaching kids is such a rewarding experience

"Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Involve me and I understand"

time to test those "Eggnauts"

it was a wonderful day

This was just a tiny effort to show the beauty of the Universe to children. We all need to play our part, continue our effort to educate the future generations, to help them to discover our Universe , to make the world a better place.

On a closing note, please consider making a donation towards “Astronomy in Timor-Leste: Celebrating the Transit of Venus 2012” (a project of UNAWE) – that’s my “Birthday Wish”.

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Ask an Astronomer

It's not usual to have professional astronomers visiting Sri Lanka, in fact the number of Sri Lankan Professional Astronomers are probably less than a dozen and most of them resides abroad except Prof. Kavan Ratnatunga, a retired research astronomer who's settled in Colombo enjoying his hobbies and serving as the President of Sri Lankan Astronomical Association. Of course whenever any of our astronomers visit Sri Lanka for holiday, I never miss the opportunity to get hold of them and organize events locally. It's not everyday you meet an astronomer, and students find it fascinating to meet and discuss astronomy with a "real" astronomer.

Other than the Sri Lankan astronomers, we have been visited time to time over the years by a foreign astronomer - Michael Snowden - who's very fond of Sri Lanka, and a long term friend of late Sir Arthur C Clarke. I met Micahel through Prof. Kavan in 2005 and ever since we have been good friends and done quite a few programs together. In his last visit in March 2010, I organized a discussion session called "Ask an Astronomer" for few high school students which turned out to be very well received. The objective of the session was to gather couple of students who are serious about pursuing higher studies in Astronomy and give them an opportunity to interact with an astronomer directly, learning, raising their questions, sharing their views...

Michael returned last month again, and as usual I organized couple of events with him. We managed to do another session on "Ask an Astronomer" with 6 high school students. The discussion started with Michael talking about Exoplanets - a much discussed topic these days and then the students got the opportunity to join the discussion raising questions and talking various aspects of Astronomy. Also another important subject discussed during the session was higher education in Astronomy! Each student talked about their field of interest in astronomy and was advised how they can achieve it, what are the available options, etc... Overall the session went well clearing some doubts, sharing more knowledge and most of all inspiring them to continue the path to higher education in Astronomy.

This was a much needed session as Sri Lanka currently is in a critical place as there are only 2 students doing higher studies in Astronomy or related fields. Although the interest in astronomy among students is high, many hesitant to continue that enthusiasm to do higher studies mainly due to lack of guidance, financial support, less awareness of opportunities, etc... Via Sri Lanka Astronomical Association, we hope to hold more of these sessions to help the students and encourage them to pursuit their dream.


The session was also a part of "ET are you out there - Voyager Campaign" and was held on the 30 October 2010 at the Cinnamon Grand Hotel, Colombo.

Michael Snowden with students.

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Completing 24 orbits around the Sun

Last Sunday 18th of April, I celebrated completing my 24th orbit around the Sun. It’s pretty amazing to think that I have traveled so much across the Space.

Rather than celebrating it in a very contemporary way, I thought of doing something I always wanted to do, but never got around it.

In Sri Lanka we have lot orphanages, most of them are filled with kids. Some of these kids never seen their parents or some were abandoned or some lost, which ever way they ended up at an orphanage, and they hardly get anything we have in our day-to-day lives.

For my birthday I decided to spend some time with the kids at this orphanage (girls’ home) near my place. With my family, few relatives and close astronomy friends we spent a whole day with the kids enjoying the beauty of the Universe. We did give them lunch, but I guess the better food is the food for the brain - knowledge.

Below are some unforgettable moments from the day.

The day started with a lecture "Universe and Everything in it". It was interesting to see the reactions of the kids when they started realizing how small we are and how big is the Universe.

Using Earth Ball to demonstrate day-night, why it's round, why someone from south or sides never falls off was fun. Many thanks to Carolina Ödman from UNAWE for sending the Earth Ball.

Explaining Solar System

Small exhibition set-up

while I was giving the talk, my friends were preparing the next activity

next activity was Solar System scale model

we asked kids to guess where would be the planets be if we put the whole solar system inside the orphanage land

kids were marking the positions of the planets

more planets to mark

all were surprised to see the real positions of the planets!

and then it was the lunch time

after lunch, kids playing around and of course now they have more questions than they had before

:-)

next activity was the "Egg Rocket". Here I'm giving a brief introduction to Rockets and the activity

kids were divided into 5 groups for the activity

they had to build a rocket model with the egg inside, egg is the Astronaut!

hard at work! very focused!

thinking how to save the astronaut or rather "Eggonaut"

this is my dad giving some tips, guess he knows enough astronomy by now :-)

after building the rocket, all of them were dropped from a height of one floor.

Guess it's R.I.P. for that "Eggonaut"

anxiously waiting till we check the next one

time for the GAM birthday cake. my dad made this (yes, our family has been doing bridal, weddings, cakes, etc... for twenty years - which explains one of my hobbies - fashion designing)

they sang "happy birthday" in both Sinhalese and English, how nice :-)

then we made a banner with hand prints, it was way too fun and kids loved it.

:-)

middle logo is the "Universe Awareness" logo

lots of hands!

as the final activity, we did a "Water Rocket" demonstration

launch was delayed due to some technical difficulties

and up it goes

the kids with the banner we all made which hangs in my room now

it was a day to remember

I want to thank my family who helped with the preparation and friends – Laika, Pinky, Abi, Desh who helped on the day with the activities.

I hope my little contribution would at least make few kids interested in Science. Astronomy is a multifaceted as a brilliant-cut diamond, an infinite font of ideas and imagination. So much to learn and so much to learn of. Through this beautiful subject we can make a better place and help to understand our Universe as a whole and at the same time improving life here on Earth.

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Galle Astronomy Workshop

An astronomy workshop was held in Galle (South) Sri Lanka on the 26 – 27 of March 2010 for students and teachers of Sacred Heart Convent. The workshop was conducted by Sri Lanka Astronomical Association as a part of UNAWE – Sri Lanka, Saturn Observation Campaign, Dark-Sky Astro-Tourism project and pre-Global Astronomy Month (GAM) program.

The workshop is one of the long running annual programs in Southern Sri Lanka and this is the 7th consecutive time it’s been held. About 150 students and 20 teachers participated in the workshop.

Below is a photographic report of the program.

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Officials of Sri Lanka Astronomical Association started the 3.5hours journey to Galle (South) at around 3pm.

It has become more of a tradition to stop at the beach on the way to South

Sunset

The students welcome the officials with roses

students at the opening ceremony

head teacher of the astronomical society of Sacred Heart Convent

opening lecture: Observational Astronomy by Thilina Heenatigala

Teachers enjoying the beautiful views of Saturn and Moon

for most it was the first time to view through a telescope

students lining-up to catch the glimpse of Moon and Saturn

The younger students performed astronomy themed dramas which was a brilliant way to educate the kids by kids.

lets launch a rocket!

"solar system family"

a group of students who performed the Solar System family.

From grades 7 to 9, there's little astronomy included in the local curriculum. To cover the whole curriculum a lecture was delivered by Dimuth Prasad.

Dimuth Prasad giving a talk

After the lecture a group discussion session was held. Each group discussed various aspects of astronomy.

intense discussion

Group discussion was followed by a Q&A session.





Back to observations. Students learned how to identify constellations using star maps.

the students gave souvenirs to the conductors

And as usual didn't fail to stop by the beach on the way back to Colombo.

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