25 Feb 2005

Pupils reach for the stars at University College Cork (UCC)

Today ( 23 February 2005 ) students from Deerpark CBS observed the night sky in Hawaii - in real time - from UCC. The students used the telescope to observe planets, nebulae and galaxies in real time from Hawaii (11 hours behind Ireland ). The 25 ton telescope, controlled entirely by the students, worked perfectly, taking some excellent images of Jupiter and Saturn despite the full Moon. After students from Deerpark CBS, Cork , logged off from their session students from a High School in Kentucky , USA logged on to take over control of the telescopes.

This is the first time that students in Munster gained access to the Faulkes telescopes. The Faulkes telescopes have been built specifically to provide secondary school students (primarily in the UK ) with access to large telescopes during the school day. It is hoped that eventually many schools will use these telescopes in the classroom to inspire students to study astronomy and the sciences in general.

The students were in UCC as part of a week-long Astronomy Programme being run by UCC's Access Programme in collaboration with Armagh Planetarium and the Department of Physics, UCC. During the week 600 1^st and 2^nd year students spent one hour in the Stardome, a portable planetarium from the Armagh Planetarium, observing the most fascinating objects in the night sky space. Interactive physics demonstrations were organised by UCC?s Department of Physics. On Tuesday evening Robert Hill, Education Presenter from Armagh Planetarium held a very exciting interactive workshop with Physics teachers from Access Programme linked schools in Cork & Kerry. Robert talked to the teachers about the Faulkes Telescopes project and the European Space Agency as well as demonstrating some practical experiments that can be used in the classroom to make science real!

UCC's Access Programme commenced in 1996 and is a priority policy of the University's Strategic Development Plan. The Access Programme targets those students who have the ability to benefit from and succeed in higher education, but who, for social or economics reasons, are underrepresented at third level.

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