Jewels of the Night at Space Camp
There was great anticipation for Space Camp and this year’s expedition to the depths of outer space did not disappoint Form 5.
There was no mistaking the grandest planet of them all, Jupiter, visible to the naked eye as it broke through the partial cloud cover to dazzle over Solihull’s night skies. Using SkyView, the augmented reality app, the star gazers identified some of zodiac constellations and tracked the Hubble telescope and the International Space Station as they soared through the night skies.
To help make the children more aware of the physical demands of space travel they undertook different elements of NASA astronaut training. This involved exercises that astronauts might do in preparation for space travel to avoid muscle wastage, and to improve their stamina and co-ordination.
The astronauts investigated the concept of space tourism taking a virtual reality flight on a weather balloon over 40,000 kilometres high to the very edge of the stratosphere, and they explored our neighbouring planets and experienced a moon landing. Finally, it was time to bed down on planet earth and watch the space-themed movie WALL-E.