Practical Astronomy Workshop

     The Judenite’s Astronomical Organization (JAO), which is the first and the official astronomical community in the Saint Jude Catholic School has a primary aim of promoting the education, understanding, awareness, and interest involving astronomy to the Filipino community, by providing various hands-on activities, designed to pique the curiosity among its members regarding astronomy. Due to our desire to promote astronomy more to the Filipino community, the JAO will be organizing an event entitled, “Practical Astronomy Workshop,” which will happen on April 4, 2018, from 4:30 pm to 6:30 pm at the IB room 8. Aside from this, this event will serve as the training ground for JAO to participate in the Astronomer's Without Border's International Asteroid Search Collaboration the following year.

     This event will consist of three lectures. The first lecture will be about the basics of using the software Astrometrica as a means for astronomers to discover planets and asteroids. The second lecture is about determining the time of the day using the shadow of the sun. the last lecture will be about the basics of setting up an equatorial mount telescope.

     This event is open to all of the members of the high school community of Saint Jude. In addition, there is no registration fee needed in order to participate in this event.

     I am honored to become the speaker for the event. 

     There were more than 10 participants who registered for our event with Mr. Russel Odi, my astronomy mentor at Saint Jude as the facilitating teacher for the event. 

SURPRISE YOU MADE A DISCOVERY! Pictures during the first part of the event series where I am teaching the participants how to use the software Astrometrica on how to discover an asteroid. 

IT'S 5 O'CLOCK. Pictures during the second part of the event series where I am teaching the participants how to determine the estimated time using the four fingers.

OMG I SAW SOMETHING. Pictures during the third part of the event series where I am teaching the participants how to assemble a telescope with equatorial mounting. 

(For my IB CAS requirements; this includes the evidence and the reflection of the CAS experience)

     Last March 2018, I looked back at the original documents where I first proposed the Judenite's Astronomical Organization to the entire school community. Suddenly, the list of activities caught my attention because I realized that there are still three remaining activities that I proposed at the start of the school year that we haven't done. This really alarmed me because, considering the fact that I am not even sure that there will still be a Judenite's Astronomical Organization the following year, I have to ensure that JAO will complete all of the activities that I proposed before the start of the school year, so that I can leave the organization that I have started peacefully.

     Because of this, I decided to launch this activity in order for me to fulfill all of the activities that I have proposed at the start of the school year. 

     We named the workshop practical astronomy workshop because these things can be applied to our everyday lives. 

     Even though in order for me to prepare this event, I have to spend my personal time to prepare that everything is in place, I am still very happy about this. I feel like even though I lost a countless number of sleep hours, it is worth it because I was able to share my knowledge and personal experience in SGAC's IASC to my members. 

     At the end of this activity, I was able to achieve LO1, LO2, LO3, LO4, and LO5. In addition, I was able to exhibit the traits of knowledgeable, balance, inquirer, communicator, and thinker. I know that observational astronomy is not my forte because I have short memory loss, but this activity allowed me to appreciate observational astronomy more (LO1, knowledgeable). In order for me to ensure that all of the things and information that I am disseminating to my members, I have to spend a lot of time studying and reviewing about how to assemble a telescope, how to operate Astrometrica again, and how to estimate time using the sun. Mind you this is not easy. Other people have their parents and teachers who are always there for them if they need help, but I don't. I have to learn everything on my own (LO2, LO4). I planned this CAS creativity experience together with my members at JAO, even though we have a lot of academics that we are also busy with (communicator, balanced, LO3, and LO5). 

     Overall, I am very happy that I pushed through with this event even though I have many uncertainties before. When I am sharing my knowledge in Astrometrica to the participants, I got into thinking and inquiring about things in Astronomy such as what are the other functions in the software and how far can our telescope manage to see. This activity is definitely the start of me delving also into the field of observational astronomy.