2,000 Student Astronomers for Go-Science

What's the best way to get students interested in science? Get them out the classroom

By: Arthur Mondale | WNCT-On Your Side
Published: April 01, 2009

What's the best way to get students interested in science?
Get them out the classroom.
This weekend 2,000 middle-schoolers from across the east will be looking at the skies as The Go-Science 100 Hours of Astronomy Project kicks-off.
Now one star student will help thousands learn more about the galaxy.
He's got a 102.5 percent average in science...can build a telescope bigger than himself in a day...and he still has time to debate the formation of our universe.
C.M. Eppes Middle School’s Josh Smith will join 2,000 other middle-schoolers from across the east in Pitt County for Go-Science's 100 Hours of Astronomy Project, a four day event designed to bring astronomy down to earth.
"If you're not involved, you're not interested. If you're reading out of a book answering questions and doing quizzes--you're not interested in it,” said C.M. Eppes Middle School science teacher Jamie Stanfield. “But when you can actually go out in the field...you're excited to come back to school the next day and learn."
Students will learn how to observe the night sky with experts from the Carolina Skies Astronomy Club.
"We're moving to a more science and tech based economy and we need students and we need people that are trained in that,” said Go-Science executive director Roger Conner. “And that's what programming like this helps do. It's important for both an economic perspective as well as an educational perspective."
So the next time kids like josh look at the sky, they'll have a little more to think about.