The first Astronomy Camp 2022 jointly organized by Pokhara Astronomical Society (PAS) and Gandaki Province Academy of Science and Technology (GPAST) was held at Regional Agricultural Research Center in Kaski, Lumley, from Kartik 2 to 4, 2079 (October 19-21, 2022). 14 schools participated in this education camp with at least one government school from each district of Gandaki province. This camp was organized to train and strengthen the practical knowledge of astronomy and space science to the school students and teachers.
The first day of the camp was discussed in terms of basic astronomy. In the discussion, Sujan Dahal, Angel Basyal and Raj Kumar Pradhan presented the hypotheses of the solar system's structure, the origin of the black hole, and the structure of the Milky Way galaxy as well as the HR-diagram respectively. To make the discussion more interactive, the participants interacted with the astronomer Dr. Sudeep Neupane in a virtual zoom meeting. On the same day, celestial bodies such as Jupiter and its Jovian moons, Saturn and its elegant rings, stars, constellations such as Capricorn, Aquarius and Sagittarius were observed with the aid of laser lights and astronomical telescopes. The session was conducted by Sabin Gautam, Project Coordinator of the Pokhara Astronomical Society.
On the second day of the science camp, program coordinator Nishan Lamichhane taught the participating students and teachers about the location, speed and proper time of observation of celestial bodies using Stellarium software. There was also a discussion about how to view the partial solar eclipse on the 8th of Kartik this year. The topic of why and how to create the importance of robots in today's science and technology era was presented to the participating students and teachers by Sudip Vikram Adhikari, CEO of Beyond Apogee, along with team members Alish Dhakal, Pravin Timilsina and Sujan Dahal. All the participants were guided to assemble the SajiloBot robotics kits themselves. They learnt coding and
giving commands to robots to make it move and do various tasks.
Mahesh Thakuri, chairperson of the Pokhara Astronomical Society, conducted a session in which astronomical kits such as the Star Wheel, Clinometer, Star Clock, Sun Dial, and Solar Motion were made. Thakuri taught students and teachers how to make and use it properly. These participants were also taught to observe astronomical objects by using these kits. Apart from this, the students were also given the opportunity to observe Mars, Orion Nebula and Andromeda Galaxy, which is about 2.5 million light years away from us. On the last day of the camp, the students gave excellent presentations on the different topics of astronomy and space science like solar system, black holes,comets, astrochemistry, asteroids, and the life cycle of stars etc. Their levels of knowledge were openly admired; In that program, Raj Kumar Dhakal and Raj Kumar Pradhan suggested the good aspects and shortcomings of the students during their presentation. In the same way, training was provided to science teachers on the simple way to assemble and use the telescopes brought by different schools to the camp. Students studying from class 7 to 10 were present in the camp where the number of male and female students were equal.
Gurukul Vidya Sadan Secondary School provided special support to make this astronomy camp a huge success. Accent Educational Institute and Ultimate Education Center were the sponsors of this program. Other organizing partners were Science Teachers’ Association Nepal - Gandaki Province, Beyond Apogee, Mech Engineering and The Telescope club. This three days residential astronomy camp was concluded by Dr. Dhaka Ram Bhandari, executive director of GPAST. He requested all the teachers to use their learning from this camp to their classrooms. He also thanked all the participants and organizers of this program and informed that GPAST will organize this kind of educational program in the coming future.
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