34th Annual Report (2021-22)

91 The first part called Episode 1- Beginner Level premiered on 23rd October 2021. This session included choosing the best set-up for observing the Planets, bright nebulae, and star clusters. This session was a part of the Telescope making series which included guidance on choosing the best possible set-up for telescope purchase and assembly for simple viewing and observations of deep- sky objects and planets. About 700 people have viewed the session online. A workshop on Choosing your Telescope rd was conducted in two phases on the 23 of October th and the 13 of November respectively. Vidyapeeth, Rahuri and Samata International School, Shrirampur. A total of more than 1000 people benefitted from these sessions from April 2021- March 2022. The attendees included school and college students, teachers and general astronomy enthusiasts from all over the country. Jamir Manur from TLC was also invited as a Resource person to conduct the stargazing session. The sessions were organised for the following educational institutes along with the ones mentioned above.: Rani Laxmi bai Mulinchi Sainiki Shala, Pirangut S. P. College Dighanchi Girls High School, Dighanchi. Madhyamik High School, Gargoti in INYAS Science camp by D Y Patil University, Kolhapur. Diploma Engineering Students at Zeal Polytechnic, Narhe. Diploma Engineering Students at P K Technical Campus, Chakan ¬ ¬ ¬ ¬ ¬ ¬ The second part of the same series was held on 13th November 2021 in which the viewers were given a glimpse of how to choose the best set-up for Astrophotography and small astronomy projects. About 100+ people have viewed the session online. The sessions were coordinated by Atharva Pathak, Tushar Purohit, andSamir Dhurde. More than 1600 people have viewed the entire series of sessions online so far. The IUCAA Scipop team religiously strives to make science fun and interesting for children through fun toys and experiments and also works on developing various teaching aids. Sessions on demonstrations of these toys were conducted all over the country. A Two-day long online workshop was conducted on the 24th and 25th of January 2022 for students of SNDT college and Sathe College, Mumbai. It included Science Toys Demonstration Session with Hands-on Activities and an NLP session. Similar sessions were conducted at Savitribai Phule School, Mahatma Phule Krishi A one-day program for students from all over Kolhapur from different schools was organised by the Rajaram College, Kolhapur on 11th December 2021. Shivani Pethe and Atharva Pathak were invited as resource persons. Around 100 students and 15 teachers attended this session. Following this, a sky-watching session was conducted at night and attended by around 200 people. Three telescopes were set up to show Venus, Saturn, Jupiter and themoon. SCIENCE TOYS / ASTRONOMY TALKS / SKYWATCH