Celestial Explorers

City Montessori School strives to empower every student to master the challenges of today and shape the world of tomorrow. We strongly believe that our skills and competencies must be continuously renewed and developed. Knowledge and insights must be combined with creativity. Thus to prepare our students to face the challenges of tomorrow and contribute substantially to the next big thing - SPACE EXPLORATIONS and promote STEM learning, CMS has launched an Astronomy Clubs – CELESTIAL EXPLORERS for students of Grade VI-IX which is managed by Labrynthe Private Limited.

The club offers a wonderful opportunity for students to learn exciting new concepts of astronomy and space sciences. It brings innovation to scientific education and makes learning interesting. Astronomy being a multi-disciplinary science becomes a wonderful gateway subject that can provide a ‘hook’ to the students to study many other traditional science subjects. Labrynthe focus on teaching Space Science and Astronomy to students through practical hands on experience, which helps them develop their knowledge base as well as life skills. Some of the topics covered in the club sessions are different levels of model rocketry, satellites, telescopes, solar system, life cycle of a star, black holes, solar observation, galaxies, constellations, etc.

The Moon - Our Neighbour

In this session, students learn about our celestial neighbour- The Moon through a multimedia session. Students learnt about the facts and features of the moon, the also leant about the various physical features present on the Moon. This was followed by learning about the reason behind the changing phases of the moon and also about Tides and reason behind their occurrence. The session was concluded in an activity in which the students made a Moon-Phase Viewer to learn and observe the different phases of the moon and how they change daily.

Telescope Handling

The session was purely a hands-on session, in this the students learnt about the parts and working of both refractor and reflector telescopes. They then used a 38mm refractor and 76mm reflector telescope for terrestrial observations.

Sally Ride EarthKAM Workshop

A one-day Sally Ride EarthKAM workshop was conducted at City Montessori School, Gomti Nagar I on April 16, 2018 by Labrynthe Pvt. Ltd. 45 students from classes VI-IX, who are a part of the school’s Astronomy Club, participated in the workshop. Sally Ride EarthKAM is a NASA sponsored project.EarthKAM means Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle school Students. It is an educational program that enables students to take pictures of their own planet from a digital camera on-board The International Space Station (ISS) via a web interface. The EarthKAM camera is till date a permanent payload on board the ISS and supports approximately four missions annually, one for each season. The recent mission was opened from April 10th – 16th, 2018. In the workshop, students were shown a power-point presentation on Sally Ride EarthKAM and how the program works. They were also given a brief demonstration on how to request for the photographs keeping various aspects such as orbital path, weather, location, day/night preference in mind. The students were then given a program conduction guide and their unique codes. They then requested their images from home.

Safe Solar Observations

In this session, students learnt about the SUN and the reasons to study about it. They also learnt about different layer of the sun and the various solar features and the phenomenons related to them. They also learnt the ways to observe the Sun safely and realised the importance of using safe methods for solar observation. They learnt to make a ball projector and made their own ball projectors and used them to observe the Sun safely. They were also given Solar View Goggles to observe the Sun safely.

Magical Eyes- Telescopes

In this 2 part session, part I was a multimedia session in which the students learnt about the types, parts and working of telescopes. The learnt about the 3 optical devices viz. Telescopes, Binoculars and Microscopes. They also learnt about the history of telescopes and the various mounts. They were amazed to know that we also have telescopes that work with the non-visible spectrum of light, i.e. UV, IR, gamma, x-ray, radio waves etc. The session was concluded with the future of ground-based and space based telescopes, the European Extremely Large Telescope and the James Webb Telescope. Part II was a purely hands-on session, in this the students made their own 50mm refractor telescopes using convex lenses.

Life Cycle of a Star

In this session, students learnt about the different stages in the life of a star and its fate on the basis of its mass. Students were fascinated by the idea that stars also have a life cycle like ours and they learnt about nebulae, protostars, red giant and white dwarfs, supernova explosion, neutron star and black holes. They also got to know how balance between gravitational collapse and nuclear reactions are responsible for life of a star.

Launch to Learn

In this session students learnt about Aristotle's and Galileo's theory on projectile motion and its relevance in today's world in Space Sciences and Sports. They also learnt about Newton's theory of escape velocity and how it is used today in launching satellites and deploying them in various Earth orbits. This was followed by making a catapult and taking up some target based launching challenges. This allowed the students to apply the laws of projectile motion which they had learnt in the session through the power-point presentation.

How High is the Sky

In this power-point presentation based session students learnt about the different types of satellites based on their purpose, followed by learning about the different types of orbits. They learnt about the characteristics, advantages and disadvantages of the three orbits- Lower Earth Orbit (LEO), Middle Earth Orbit (MEO) and Geosynchronous Earth Orbit (GEO), followed knowing about the satellites placed in these orbits. They also learnt about the Molniya Orbits, Polar Orbits and High Altitude Platforms (HAPs). In the end they recapitulated their learnings by doing an activity of placing the satellites in their correct orbits.

Eclipses

In this session, students learnt about the two kinds of eclipses, Solar and Lunar and the reason behind their occurrence through a power-point presentation. They also learnt about the different types of Solar Eclipses- Total, Annular and Partial and the Lunar Eclipses- Penumbral, Partial and Total. They learnt about the alignment of the celestial objects and its significance during the two eclipses and got rid of the myths attached to eclipses. This was followed by demonstration of both the eclipses using a scale down model of Sun, Earth and Moon.

Celestial Rendezvous with the Sky

In this evening session, students learnt about our nearest celestial neighbour- LUNA (moon) and solar system planets visible from Earth. They also understood the formation of lunar features through hands-on activities. Students enjoyed observing Moon, Venus and Jupiter and its Galilean Moons through a 200mm dobsonian mount reflector telescope.

Students learnt about lunar features such as Mare, Impact Crater, Terrae, and Regolith. Students learnt interesting facts about 5 planets of our solar system visible naked eye in the sky i.e., Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Students learnt about the formation of lunar craters through Crater Making activity.

Students learnt the reasons for changing Moon phases. Students observed the features on the surface of moon and planets- Venus and Jupiter by observing them through telescope.

Astronomy Workshop

Students at CMS Gomti Nagar Campus I primary section were taught about celestial bodies and their phenomena in a fun way method. They enjoyed & got familiar with the Sun, the Moon and the Stars through the exciting & interesting Sky Watch Astronomy Workshop.

Sally Ride EarthKAM Workshop

A one-day Sally Ride EarthKAM workshop was conducted at City Montessori School, Gomti Nagar I on April 16, 2018 by Labrynthe Pvt. Ltd. 45 students from classes VI-IX, who are a part of the school’s Astronomy Club, participated in the workshop. Sally Ride EarthKAM is a NASA sponsored project. EarthKAM means Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle school Students. It is an educational program that enables students to take pictures of their own planet from a digital camera on board the International Space Station (ISS) via a web interface. The EarthKAM camera is till date permanent payload on board the ISS and supports approximately four missions annually, one for each season. The recent mission was opened from April 10th – 16th, 2018.

In the workshop students were shown a presentation on Sally Ride EarthKAM and how the program works. They were also given a brief demonstration on how to request for the photographs keeping various aspects such as orbital path, weather, location, day/night preference in mind. The students were then given a program conduction guide and their unique codes. They will request their images from home.