Visit to Planetarium

Hi everyone..

     I had a great experience yesterday. As a volunteer of Teach India Initiative, I had been teaching some under-privileged students for the past 2 months. In one class some of them asked me what a Planetarium was. I explained to them and they 

were very eager to know more about it. Then, I thought, why not take them to the Planetarium as part of a educational trip. Soon, I started organizing the trip to Birla Planetarium. My friends (Nachiketas, Aishwarya, Krithika and Sowmya) too joined. Apart from them, there were many who supported me for this. I'm just grateful for them... without them it would not have been possible. 

    

        As for the experience it was simply great. The turnout was very good, more than I expected. 38 children were already eagerly waiting for us when we reached the locality. We started around 1 pm. We had their attendance taken and briefed them about our visit. They were very enthusiastic. We reached the Planetarium around 2 pm. We took them to the park first, which had games that demonstrated various principles in Physics. There were few, who just enjoyed being in the place and played fully to their extent.

 Also there were the eager few, who observed how the models worked and what principles were behind them. 

    Then, we assembled them around 2:45 and went to the 3D science movie. They were fascinated by the glasses provided to them and when the movie started they joy knew no bounds. The smaller ones started waving around their hands trying to catch something in the air. So many "oohs" and "wows". We were just thrilled to see their joy. 

     Then we went to the main show about the planets at 3:45. They sat in their places and started admiring the interior of the stadium. When the show started, they fell silent. When the show ended there were some who were complaining about how some of their friends kept talking and some who were just too happy to be there. After seeing all these, they rushed to the bus. Then came the snacks time. Some children lined up, again and again to get more snacks. As we had enough snacks, we didn't complain and everyone got at least 2-3 rounds of their favourite snacks. On the way back we stopped at Gandhi memorial and took some snaps and just relaxed for some time.

    On the whole, the trip was simply great. We had fun and the most important of all it was most satisfying. The children thanked us for the wonderful trip and asked us to join in more such activities. I hope to conduct such activities further too...