By Megan Alley
Sun staff
Students in Batavia Middle School’s Astronomy Club are looking up to learn answers about the universe.
The club, which is in its second year, is organized by Steven Schultz, a teacher at the school.
Students in grades six through eight meet every Tuesday after school from 3 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Right now, there are some 10 students active in the Astronomy Club.
“There is a rich history of scientific achievement written across the nighttime sky, and we strive to tell this story while helping the students to interpret the motions of the sun, moon and planets against the constellations and understand the scale of the universe,” Schultz said of the club in an email.
He explained that earlier this year, club members constructed a scale model of the solar system and they made artistic renditions of the planets in watercolor and acrylic paint.
“They photographed their portraits of the planets through a telescope … our most recent project was photographing January’s total lunar eclipse,” Schultz wrote.
Earlier this month, the club was beginning to research the life cycles of stars and their compositions, masses, temperatures and spectral characteristics, and an evening trip to the Cincinnati Observatory was planned for May 15.
“That was a big hit last year” Schultz shared.
When The Sun sat in on a club meeting in late April, Schultz was teaching the students about the life cycle of stars, using the red supergiant star Betelguese as an example.
Astronomy Club member Ari Machuca, a seventh-grader, joined the club last year.
“Since I was really little, I was always into astronomy. My dad showed me all the constellations and got me telescopes, and it was really cool,” she said.
Machuca likes the club because it incorporates several disciplines.
“Here we use math, and science and physics,” she said. “Once, we were even seeing the mass of a planet, and the actual formulas, which was really cool.”
She explained that one of her favorite projects to date was building a scale model of the solar system on the football field.
“It was huge, and it was awesome.” she said.
Machuca said she’ll join the club again next year, and she’s considering a career as an astrophysicist.
“To learn about new planets and discover new planets that we might travel to,” she added.
This is the first year as an Astronomy Club member for Noah Hildebrandt, a sixth-grader at the school.
“It sounded cool, so I decided to join and see what it was,” he said, adding that he’s always had an interest in astronomy, specifically black holes.
Hildebrandt, who may “possibly” consider a career in astronomy, has enjoyed all aspects of the club so far, and he said he’ll join again next year.
This is also the first year as an Astronomy Club member for Drew Smith, a seventh-grader at the school.
“I’ve always been into science, and last year, we started learning about astronomy, and I really like it and I wanted to learn more, so I decided to join,” he said.
He explained that one of his favorite projects so far was building a scale model of the solar system in the hallway.
“It was so small that Earth would be the size of a pin head,” Smith explained, adding that he’ll join the club again next year.
“It’s so cool to have math in the science,” he added.