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Chetpet school students measure earth’s circumference at event organised by SPACE
Students from Chetpet schools congregated at the MCC higher secondary school for astronomy based event – Summer Solstice where they participated in an experiment to measure the earth’s circumference. Students from Vidya Mandir School recorded 99.8% accurate values
Numerous education based businesses are focussing on improving the learning experience of children by either supplementing current lessons or providing learning that is beyond textbooks. Students from Chetpet experienced the later when they assembled at MCC Higher Secondary School for an astronomy-based event, Summer Solstice organised by SPACE Technology and Education.
The event was part of ‘Project Paridhi,’ where field experiments were performed to measure the circumference of the earth. Students of MCC Hr. Sec. School, MCC Matriculation, Sir Mutha School, Lady Andal Venkata Subba Rao, Madras Seva Sadan Girls Hr. Sec, Karthikeyan Matric and Vadapalani Matriculation H.S.S from Vadapalani participated in the experiment.
Speaking at the event, S. Venkata Narayanan, South Zonal business manager, SPACE technology and education said, “We are providing services and products in the area of astronomy and space sciences to schools, colleges and various other institutions.”
The event was great appreciated by the students as it provided them an out of the box experience and connected them with the real world through the experiment. The team from P.S. School and Vidya Mandir School recorded 99.8% accurate values while the team from MCC and Vadapalani Matriculation School recorded 99.2% accurate values.
Sabarika Mani, a class IX student of PS School, who won the event, couldn’t contain her joy and spoke on the benefit of participating in such events, “Project Paridhi provides a platform for students to think beyond books. It has inspired me to develop great interest in astronomy.”
T. Juno, physics teacher from Vidya Mandir Senior Secondary School felt that such events were necessary to provide a working experience of science and allied subjects to the students. He said, “Measuring the circumference of the earth — an impossible task was made possible with just the measurement of the length of shadows.”