Parkway North Students, Club Hold Astronomy Night

On Monday Dec. 5, 2016, the Astronomy Club and all of Dr.LeFever’s Astronomy classes held Parkways North’s annual Astronomy Night.

“I have been doing Astronomy Nights for 20 years in Parkway…I wanted to make sure the kids could see the night one time through the telescope,” said Astronomy teacher Dr. Karen LaFever.

The event took weeks to prepare. Most of the event was put together by Astronomy students who were receiving extra credit.

“Dr. LaFever and some other students did most of the organizing and, just my group, for a week or so in class organized what we were doing so it wasn’t too hard on us,” said junior Alix Enkel.

At the event, there was a Starlab Planetarium, which is a portable planetarium; a guy with a telescope, and interactive booths made by students where you could learn more about Astronomy.

“My favorite part was when lots of little kids came to our table and participated in our activity and had so much fun. Our booth was Crater Creator. We had cake mix and marbles, so kids could see what it’s like to make craters. They made a huge mess, but it was pretty fun.” said Enkel.

More than 250 people showed up for the event. This is more than previous years causing the students to run out of material.

“I was very pleased with the turnout, but we ran out material for the first time…I was very excited,” said LaFever

LaFever and some students hope for students and kids to be inspired to take Astronomy as a class in the future or become interesting in astronomy and explore it on their own.

“I hope it inspires [students] to go into Astronomy. I hope, maybe, it will inspire them to go into teaching because that’s what we did last night. If nothing else, I hope it helps people to know to go outside and look up because the sky is beautiful,” said LaFever.

by Ijeoma Nkenchor, Marketing Genius