Reaching for the stars, Diamond Bar High School’s Astronomy Club skyrockets into the new school year. Since astronomy has many different subcategories while remaining a niche subject, the club has been inspired to introduce this study of science to students on campus.
“Astronomy is an extremely vast field, so our club is split between 5 departments: Aerospace Engineering, Astrobiology/Astrochemistry, Celestial Objects, Constellations/History and Astrophysics,” junior Bonnie Nien said. “Each department has a specific goal for each year with the overall purpose of again, introducing all the different possibilities astronomy explores.”
An example is the club’s Aerospace Engineering department, which focuses on building rockets for NASA. They aim to open these kinds of career opportunities to students on campus and offer learning experiences within the club itself, such as launching water rockets and performing experiments.
While their Astrophysics and Celestial Objects departments collaborate to prepare for the USA Astronomy and Astrophysics Olympiad, the Aerospace Engineering department has been planning their trip to the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab. The club recently visited the Griffith Observatory over Thanksgiving break along with WiSTEM, Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, and SWE, Society of Women Engineers and other clubs on campus.
“Since each of the different departments in Astronomy Club is in a way connected to another field in STEM, we’re definitely trying to have as many collaborations as possible with other clubs related to each branch in astronomy,” Nien said. “For example, collaborating with biology clubs to set up experiments or physics clubs for astrophysics lectures. Again, we do have another trip planned, this time to JPL, and most likely to be during spring break.”
Since the information is vast in Astronomy, there is much to cover in their meetings. A lot of the planning goes to the club’s lesson plans for their lecture meetings.
“Some challenges we’ve faced are preparing the materials for each lecture and developing lesson plans/club activity plans,” Nien said. “There’s a lot of information within astronomy to organize, and our officers have worked hard to form yearly schedules for each of their departments in order to incorporate both learning the basics and applying the knowledge in fun, interactive ways.”
Despite the amount of work needed to invest in the club, the officer board is passionate about sharing their knowledge and presenting chances to get involved in the Astronomical field. In the future, the club is looking to fundraise for a school telescope which would open up more opportunities and introduce the science to a larger audience.
