CHENNAI: Space Technology & Education, Chennai, organised a workshop for students of Agarwal Vidhyalaya Matriculation Higher Secondary School on Tuesday as part of its scientific public outreach activities and international astro-educative programmes.
The 36 students who participated in the workshop were taught how to request images of earth from the International Space Station (ISS) through the Sally Ride EarthKAM (Earth Knowledge Acquired by Middle school students) February Mission, which is a NASA mission administered by Sally Ride Science.
“This mission is being conducted in Chennai since 2015 at 30 Schools,” said A Prabhakaran, Astronomy Educator at SPACE, Chennai.
“It has motivated students to pursue programmes in astronomy and space science. Further, participants get a chance to capture select images of the earth’s surface as seen from space which can be used in class projects for a range of subjects.”
The photographs for the mission are taken by a special camera mounted on the ISS when it passes over those features.
“It was a very enjoyable experience,” said Karishma R Jain, a student. “After learning about this, anyone would get interested in astronomy and their curiosity about the subject would increase.”
Students also wrote messages for astronauts on board the ISS, which will be compiled by SPACE and sent to the mission team.
“It was an excellent session,” said P V Subbulakshmi, Principal, Agarwal Vidyalaya. “It was very interactive and the information about space was given with visual aid and hands on activity which helped students actively learn astronomy.”