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NEWS click on the pics to make them bigger June 2007 GCSE group make models of the lunar surface. May 2007 Year 11 science students make Big Bang posters. April 2007
Above Ross and Jessica experiment in recreating the phases of the Moon using a pingpong ball. March 2007 We start a new after-school GCSE Astronomy group. Over 25 students enroll. The first lesson was about planet Earth with a chance to make scale models out of plasticine. November 2006 We had a telescope making competition. The winner was the scope that read an upside down book from the greatest distance.
October 2006 The lower school astronomy club is now a part of SciCom! With weekly meetings offering hands-on experiences of all aspects of science. Once a month the theme will be on space science. This month we will be building telescopes. Participants will able to achieve the BA (British Association for the Advancement of Science) Science Communicators Awards July 2006 In the last meeting of the year we found out about meteor showers and target to look for over the summer. March 2006 We found out about the Cassini mission and had a go at making model Saturns.
November 2005 The lower school club investigated craters with flour, cocoa and ball bearings.
October 2005 The lower school club found out about their 'star sign' constellation and made a keep-sake constellation card to help them recognise it in the sky. They also found out about the stars and other objects in their constellation. The sixth form learn to use the East of England Science Learning Centre's portable planetarium. They presented their first external show of the 'North and South in the Celestial Sphere' to 40 children and parents at the City of Norwich School.
form September 2005 Sixth former Rob Perry wins an all expenses paid two week trip to NASA's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida and the Johnson Space Centre in Houston, Texas. Read his prize winning 'A Mission to Mars' project. Go Rob! August 2005
News doesn't get much bigger than this! We go to South Africa and work with the scientists at the Southern African Large Telescope and teach astronomy to over 500 children in township schools. Find out more in our North and South section. June 2005
A year on from the Venus Transit and it's another clear-blue-sky-day. The Hydrogen alpha telescope attracted a steady stream of interested students. There were a few nice sunspots and some "small" prominences to see. May 2005 The remaining Our Star 2 equipment has arrived. Some members had a go at using the emission tubes and spectrometers during our regular Wednesday lunchtime meeting.
The telescope bought with a grant from the NASA After Schools Astronomy Clubs also arrived and the 6th form members assembled it. That was quite a job as it has computer directed capability and the electronics had to be installed. It is a 6 inch Newtonian reflector on a Dobsonian mount. We have named it the 'Hubble Ground Telescope' - HGT for short. Rory has taken the scope home to do the initial trials.
Rory and Anton assemble the HGT April 2005 Space Observatories in School was officially launched at the National Astronomy Meeting at Birmingham University on the 8th. The resource was very well received by an enthusiastic audience of scientists and educators including SOS scientists Helen Mason and Danielle Bewsher.
Mr Cripps navigates the SOS website in front of the NAM audience March 2005 Members of the 6th Form club took two meeting with the lower school members this month. Peter, Mathew and Alex gave a talk about the Cassini-Huygens mission, then the pupils made models of the spacecraft. They also held a quiz with 'Milky Way' chocolate bars as prizes. Stuart, Anton and Laura's talk was about meteorites. Pupils were able to look at a real Martian meteorite under a microscope as well as shards form a Nickel-Iron meteorite.
February 2005 New pages on the site - Poetry Corner and Flying around the Moon Great news! The Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 has given us a £7000 grant towards our 'North and South in the Celestial Sphere' project. 10 sixth form astronomers will be off to South Africa this summer to work with scientists at the new Southern African Large Telescope and students at SA high schools on space science projects. Click here for more details. January 2005 New website name for a new year. It's a bit snappier than using the name of the club. With 'Our Star' and 'Space Observatories in School ' we needed something that our international friends could remember. December 2004 Great news as the Royal Society funds a second year of Our Star * activities with our partner scientist, Helen Mason. The £2500 grant will be used to purchase spectroscopy equipment and a binocular viewer for our hydrogen alpha telescope. In 2005 we will be concentrating on developing ways to use spectroscopy in the classroom and linking it to how scientists use the technique in their work. Spectroscopy can open a stained glass window into atoms. Elements leave their fingerprints in everything from streetlights to sunlight. Hunting down the culprits can be exciting. Most people think Bunsen invented his burner to boil water, and Helium just makes you talk like a duck. With ‘Our Star 2’ we aim to change all that! The East of England Science Centre (EESLC) lend us their new £12K planetarium. With a 5m diameter inflatable dome and an impressive projection device we are looking forward to some exciting presentations. As the Norfolk satellite centre for the EESLC, we are going to help train teachers from other schools to use the planetarium. November 2004 Nine sixth formers and Helen Mason presented a space science experience to 120 year 6 children at Toftwood Junior School. They found out lots about the International Space Station including personal experience of how space walking astronauts tighten nuts and go to the toilet (we had a couple of accidents with that one - we would like to apologise to the two pupils who got wet heads)! They found out how Helen uses the SOHO space observatory to make images of the Sun in ultraviolet radiation. Then it was time to experiment with UV sensitive sun beads to find out how we can protect ourselves from harmful UV. Finally the children had a chance to be creative and write a science poem about an image captured by the Hubble Space Telescope. October 2004 Our Royal Society partner scientist, Dr Helen Mason from Cambridge University, visited us and gave a talk about using spectroscopy to study the Sun. NASA invited us to join their new 'National After School Astronomy Club ' and we become their first international member. August 2004 Mr Cripps visited the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore and Goddard Space Flight Centre Washington to work with scientists on new Educational materials. July 2004 The Royal Society exhibit was a massive success! 6 sixth formers and Mr Cripps spent a week in London as guests of the RS. We were joined on the stand by our partner Scientist, Dr Helen Mason. We hosted over 4,000 people at the exhibit including members of the public, students, leading scientist and royalty. HRH The Prince of Wales made a special visit and spent over 10 minutes with us learning about our work and finding out about the Sun using our hands-on activities. June 2004
The 8th on June saw our most successful enterprise yet - a live webcast of the Venus transit. We launch the development of a new project with Taverham High School - 'Space Telescopes in School' - with the news of a £2500 grant from the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council (PPARC).. April 2004 Students are starting to get great images of the Sun and we post them on the web. The European Southern Observatory have posted one of Jack's and some images of Venus by Mr Cripps. Click here to see them. March 2004 Amazing news! We have been invited to be the only school exhibitor at the Royal Society's Summer Exhibition in July. There are only 25 exhibit spaces which universities and other research institutes hotly competed for. We will be showcasing 'Our Star*' which is our Royal Society sponsored partnership project with Helen Mason of the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics at Cambridge University. Some students will be staying in London for the week long exhibition whilst others will be joining us for days. We will have the opportunity of explaining our work to the public, visiting sixth formers, educators, captains of industry, politicians and the Fellows of the Royal Society - the most accomplished scientists in the country. February 2004 We start the Our Star* visits to primary schools. Of course it rains each day but we lend the schools a Sunspotter so that they can see the Sun for themselves when it eventually comes out. January 2004 We started the year by making cardboard rockets and launching them with a NASA designed compressed air system. We plan to run a series of experiments finding out the relationship between the different variables. For example the effect of launch pressure and vehicle mass on distance flown. November 2003 A new challenge is on the 'Shooting the International Space Station' page. The Site Index page has been restructured to help you find things. New pages have been added to help with physics homeworks. 10 students with Mr Cripps and Mr Horsfield met and listened to talks by two members of the Russian space programme, Cosmonaut Alexander Volkov and Scientist Dr. Alexander Martynov. We heard fascinating personal accounts of space travel and future plans for manned space flights. A member of the audience asked what was the Russian's opinion of the "Moon landing hoax theory". The Russians said simply that " The Americans made a fantastic achievement. It really happened." October 2003 October was a fabulous month for sun activity. It gave a full workout for the equipment and there is now an improved 'Shooting the Sun' page to help you get your own shots of activity on 'Our Star'.
The nights are drawing in, so members can get some observing done before they go to bed. Planet watchers can view Mars in the evening or Saturn and Jupiter in the early morning. New 'Aliens' page added to the website. September 2003 Michael and Nathanael came back from their week at Leicester University's Space School full of enthusiasm and gave an hilarious, illustrated talk to the club. Our thanks go to the Dereham Lions and Dereham Rotary Club for sponsoring them. Loads of new members from year 7 and the 6th form have joined. Meeting topics this month included space art and the optics of telescopes. A GCSE astronomy classes got underway after school at the College with over a dozen keen students from years 10, 11,12 and 13 attending. We aim to cover the whole of the syllabus in just 30 'turbo-charged' sessions. July 2003 Dr Helen Mason visits us. Our partner scientist from the University of Cambridge is a World Leader in Solar physics. Dr Mason gave an interactive talk about careers in science and technology, explaining her own work and career. We restricted entrance to girls only. Dr Mason then spent the rest of the day working with members of the Astronomy Club. The clouds finally parted just before she left, so Dr Mason was able to observe the Sun using the Our Star* telescopes. She was very surprised with the high level of detail that they revealed.
Dr Mason was also impressed with Alex's first images. She explained how the S shaped, pale area around the sunspot indicated that a flare was about to explode out of the Sun.
June 2003 In an Astronomy Club meeting, we start a new project about 'Creating Jupiter' in the lab.
All of year 8 had a chance of hands-on rocket science for a day.
Mr Cripps returned from NASA training at Kennedy Space Centre laden with posters and assorted space science goodies. A poster of him wearing an Apollo flight suit is used around school to publicise the ever expanding website. Our solar telescopes arrive and with them the clouds. Just before this weeks web update we manage to get first light with the telescopes. Pics on the Our Star* Gallery.
At an after school meeting members helped to develop a lesson on rocket fuel. This was zinc and sulfur just after it ignited. If we splattered your car with a mixture of vinegar and indigestion tablets, we're sorry!
May 2003 The inventor of the long exposure webcam mod, Steve Chambers, visited us and gave a talk to the club about his invention. 6th Form club member Willem, who has studied A2 electronics and physics, will be operating on one of our webcams. He will be assisted by fellow 6th former Jody, who has only studied physics and claims no understanding of electronics. If the patient dies, Steve has agreed to have the body sent to him in a jiffy bag for an attempt at resurrection.
Steve Chambers show club members just how tiny a webcam CCD is! The Mercury transit of the Sun on the 7th was revealed in all its glory on a sunny morning to our ETX70 scopes equipped with white light filters. Unfortunately we didn't have our Sunspotters or Maxscope as the importers were waiting for stock from the USA. However we managed to grab some images. A new page about how to make craters was posted after a very messy club meeting. In the wee hours of Saturday 31st Tom B snaps a pic of the solar eclipse from Norfolk. April 2003 We start the month with the great news of a £2500 partnership grant for the Our Star* project from the Royal Society. We hope to have the equipment after Easter and start training members to use it. GCSE Science coursework investigations in astronomy become available for trial by club members. Lots of new pages are added about space science, with links to help students access related websites. March 2003 New style website published with lots of new features. For students, there are projects to do, details of books (and DVDs soon) in the library, guidance on capturing images using a range of instruments and lots of material to help you prepare for the Our Star* project. Some students have started to produce their own pages containing exciting images that they have captured. There are also details of Mr Cripps' forthcoming visit to NASA. For students and teachers in other schools, we have given a report on the Home Astronomical Project to help you set up your own projects. Bob Greef of the Breckland Astronomical Society came to school to show his portable radio telescope and talk to members about how to make and use their own. We plan to make two and use them to observe Jupiter and the Sun.
February 2003 Our Star* project launched with an application to the Royal Society for a grant of £2500. We join with the 'Premier Division' of science when Dr. Helen Mason, Assistant Director of Research at the Cambridge University Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics, agrees to become our partner scientist. Helen is a world leader in solar physics research, working with NASA, ESA and other institutions on SOHO and the next generation SOLARB space missions. Students start to use the white light filters with the ETX70s The Nikon digital camera is pronounced faulty by Jessops - we all thought it was us being incompetent!
January 2003 Mr. Cripps gets awarded a week -long teacher training placement at Kennedy Space Centre for May. The local paper headlines 'Teacher to join space programme'. A pupil who only read the headline asked Mr Cripps for his autograph. "If you're going to be an astronaut, who's going to teach us now?" he warbled. Bless. April's star streak photos get developed. She suffers from light pollution but still gets recognisable results. We spotted Orion easily. With a bit of processing, April should be able to reveal lots of information in the pictures. |
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