The Kaua‘i Museum is launching a new program in support of cultural clubs on Kaua‘i with the intent of promoting traditions that are uniquely Hawaiian. Supplementing the ‘Ohana Saturdays, three clubs are participating: the Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School Astronomy Club
The Kaua‘i Museum is launching a new program in support of cultural clubs on Kaua‘i with the intent of promoting traditions that are uniquely Hawaiian.
Supplementing the ‘Ohana Saturdays, three clubs are participating: the Chiefess Kamakahelei Middle School Astronomy Club is scheduled for the second Saturday of the month, a cooking club featuring Casa di Amichi chef Michael Simpson is scheduled the third Saturday of the month and the Cultural Arts Club is scheduled the last Saturday of the month.
Tomorrow the students from Chiefess Kamakahelei will fill the role of educator for the day by bringing a traveling planetarium, said museum outreach coordinator Linda Shimoda.
“The planetarium is an inflatable space lab,” said James Merritt, Chiefess Kamakahelei astronomy club mentor. “It looks like an Eskimo igloo.”
When the Kaua’i Children’s Discovery Museum closed its doors, the Chiefess astronomy club approached the museum.
“They gave custodianship of the Starlab Planetarium to Pastor Merritt and I,” said Barbara Fontana, a retired teacher from Chiefess Kamakahelei and liaison for the club.
Exhibit information posted on www.kcdm.org, the Kaua’i Children’s Discovery Museum’s Web site, states the Starlab was developed at Harvard and MIT. “Starlab … is designed to surround 25-30 participants with a panorama of the universe,” and “consists of a dome, motorized projector and interchangeable projection cylinders.”
For the presentation, the planetarium’s projector will be set to Lihu‘e’s geographic location to teach participants the constellations they would see when looking up at the real Kaua‘i night sky.
The projector does not transmit an entire night sky as seen if one stepped outside, but rather it narrows its focus to pictures of the constellations, said Merritt.
The canister fitted to the projector is interchangeable, and for Saturday’s presentation it will display astronomy interest points for the current month of January which is the Greek sky, said Merritt.
“The club has been studying Greek astronomy including its connection to mythology for the past year,” said Fontana.
The students will be giving the entire presentation on Saturday. “We taught them how to set it up and they do the program. We taught them the stories behind the constellations,” Merritt said.
For example, one of the constellations that the students will discuss tomorrow is Orion, which is brightly displayed in our Hawaiian January sky, and how it is named for the Greek Mythology hunter.
The astronomy club is comprised of about 15 to 20 students with a core group of about eight presenters. Students join the club for many reasons.
“I joined because I like to know what’s happening in the sky and I like to look at constellations,” said Steven Braun, a sixth-grader who was one of the students participating at a recent Kaua’i Educational Association Science and Astronomy group star watch held last Saturday.
Referring to the star watch event, Fontana said it’s “good for the club because the kids can do real life astronomy.” One of the club members absent from the star watch was eighth-grader and astronomy club president Rowan McGrath. McGrath was visiting the Bishop Museum where she was given permission to use one of the larger telescopes. “Rowan will be one of the presenters Saturday. She’s involved in organizing the club,” among other things said Merritt.
And sometimes the stars are not the club’s main attraction. “I just like the variety of what there is to do and giving presentations to help people understand astronomy is really fun to do,” said Brock Olson, an eighth-grader.
The club is also popular among siblings such as brother and sister duo Kurt Noe, a Kaua‘i High School ninth-grader, and Kari Noe, seventh-grader and vice president of the astronomy club and brothers Aryeh and Ethan Austin-Elbaz.
Younger brother Aryeh joined the club at his mother’s suggestion that he too participate in an afterschool program like his brother Ethan. Aryeh, a sixth-grader, soon discovered that he really enjoyed the stars, outerspace and everything in the sky.
Although Aryeh said he’s not giving presentations yet, he thinks that educating people about the sky is good for the club. If people see the presentations, “they might think the astronomy club is fun and want to join, and then we’d have more people,” Aryeh said.
His brother Ethan, an eighth-grader, enjoys the club also. “It’s fun to hang out with my friends, set up the telescopes (for the star watch) and do the presentations,” Ethan said.
The program tomorrow takes place inside the planetarium. Attendees enter through a door and crawl through a well-lit tunnel which opens up into the large atrium of the planetarium.
Two presentations will be held with the first one starting at 11 a.m. and the second at 1 p.m.
The Kaua‘i Museum is located on Rice Street in Lihu‘e. Admission is free. For more information, call Linda Shimoda at 245-6931.
