Congratulations to Selected Astronomy Olympiad Teachers for 2017!

Nepal Astronomical Society (NASO) is pleased to announce the result of 5th National Call for Astronomy Olympiad Teacher Training 2017. The selected teachers will get an opportunity to attend Astronomy Olympiad Exposure Camp 2017 which will be held at Homi Bhabha Center for Science Education (HBCSE),Mumbai,India during October 31-November 3, 2017.

After careful review of all the applications received, following applicants were selected based on their motivations, CVs and recommendations/nominations letter from their respective institutions.

1. Mr. Anup Dahal, Shree Sarba Secondary School, Bhimeshwor, Dolakha
2. Mr. Aatmaram Tiwari, Everest English Boarding H. S. School, Biratnagar, Morang
3. Mr. Niraj Lamichhane, Aroma English Secondary School, Bharatpur, Chitwan
4. Mr. Riwaj Neupane, Deerwalk Sifal School, Jayabageshwori, Kathmandu
5. Mr. Teju Ram Sunar, Siral Galaxy Academy, Pokhara, Kaski

We express our sincere thanks to all the teachers who applied for this program but could not get selected! We understand your expression of interest to join our program and would recommend you to visit our website for upcoming opportunities!

A Decade of Astronomy & Space Science: Celebrating 10th Anniversary in Nepal

We celebrated our 10th Anniversary today with our volunteers, members and high students at Ankur Vidhyashram. The journey was definately not an easy one, but we learnt a lot through this decedal experience and look forward to implement our experience to create better opportunities for the youth and students in Nepal.

Mr. Pushpa Raj Sapkota, chief guest of the event  and principal at Ankur Vidhyashram praised our work engaging school students in our different activities and shared the improvement in their classroom behaviour. He also requested us to help students to guide them to their astronomy discussion forum that they are going to organized during October-November 2017.

Photo 1: Mr. Suresh Bhattarai, chairman at NASO sharing the major achievements with the participants of the gathering. (From left: Mr. Suresh Bhattarai, Mr. Pushpa Raj Sapkota, Mr. Samaya Khadka)

During the event, Mr. Samaya Khadka,one of the closed camp participants of our 4th National Astronomy Olympiad 2017 shared his experience at our astronomy olympiad to the students. He also explain the need of science communication with public and students to make science a fun.

National Astronomy Olympiad program was initiated in 2014 and become of the fastest growing talent hunt program in Nepal with its holistic approach to select students as a national winners!

Photo 2: Group photo of the participants of the gathering after the cake cutting ceremony

During the event, we also discussed on some of our proposed initiatives/programs and how we can make them more compatible to our students. We highlighted the need of more capacity building programs in coming days to strengthen our network in Nepal and abroad creating more opportunities for our youths and students.

Photo 3: Sudip Bhattrai, Assistant Professor, Aerospace at IOE, Pulchowk and Mr. Suresh Bhattarai, Chairman brainstroming on how we can improve our space programs in coming days

As we realised unless we train our students to build their confidence as well as skills we are not going to help for the development, we decided to partner with different academic institutions in Nepal and organizations in Nepal and abroad. We have already tested some of our academic partnership projects with engineering students at TU and we look forward to implement our program/s for physics students at TU in coming days.

We would like to express our sincere thanks to all our executives, members and well-wishers for their contribution to make this day a reality!

Terranaut First Selection Result For Nepal is Now Available!

We are pleased to announce the list of selected participants for project Terranaut in partnership with Terraztra Space Exploration. A total of 652 participants are selected from the pool of applicants who applied to this program till July 31, 2017! 

The selected participants are eligible for the next round in the campaign dedicated to Nepal. The list includes 6 members who are marked in green will have advantage over the other 646 participants in the next round.

The preliminary selection were done in following ways

• Psychological confidence was given importance along with determination.
• 50% of them were considered on their experience in space field.
• Matching of behavior patterns with Artificial intelligence recognition of the words used.
• Language was not considered as part of selection (Rejection was done based on bad grammar mistakes or English skills).
• Age, Education, Gender and Disability were not considered as part of the selection process.

You can click here to find the full list of selected participants.

Those who missed to apply during Nepal call can still apply for the program during its global call! The global release of the project will be available on October 4, 2017!

Terraztra Space Exploration provides a beautiful opportunity to train like a Yuri Gagarin for 14 people from anywhere in the world, selected through a worldwide process that will be released on October 2017 dedicated for the 60th Anniversary of sputnik. These 14 people will be provided flight tickets to visit moscow during June, 2018 (period of FIFA 2018) to train like “Yuri Gagarin”. They will be able to ride tanks , eat space food and off course wear space suit. The best performer of these 14 people will have an opportunity to see the Edge of Space. Apart from these 14 people there will be lot of space souvenirs and Drones to be won during the entire event.

History changed on October 4, 1957, when the Soviet Union successfully launched Sputnik I. The world’s first artificial satellite was about the size of a beach ball (58 cm.or 22.8 inches in diameter), weighed only 83.6 kg. or 183.9 pounds, and took about 98 minutes to orbit the Earth on its elliptical path.

Teej and Science: Meet and Greet 2017 held in Kathmandu!

While women are celebrating Teej Festival with their regular groups/families/friends, we decided to host a different meeting where we discuss about science together with festive flavour in Kathmandu today!

Photo: Participants posing for group photo after the "Teej & Science: Meet & Greet 2017" held today. Credit: NASO

Today, Teej and Science: Meet and Greet 2017 was held at My choice Restaurant, Lazimpat, Kathmandu. The event was organized by Women in Astronomy Nepal (WIAN) at Nepal Astronomical Society (NASO) and supported by Sano Sansar Youth Hostel- Only for Girls.

During the event, participants discussed different problems they faced while studying/teaching/reporting science. Participants of the event were primary level science teacher, secondary level science teacher, university level science teacher, students and journalists selected based on their active profile in the society.

The meeting also stressed the need of making classroom more interactive to make science interesting among students. The gathering was first kind in Nepal as per the participants. the meeting was moderated by Ms. Manisha Dwa, coordinator of WIAN and project coordinator/board of directors at NASO.

Participants agreed to utilize the local resources for science teaching and consult with NASO for any difficulties in coming days. Mr Suresh Bhattarai, Chairman at NASO expressed his committment for the practical/implicable proposals from the gathering today and from follow-up meeting in next few weeks.

5th National Call for Astronomy Olympiad Teacher Training 2017!

Nepal Astronomical Society (NASO) is pleased to announce 5th National Call for "Astronomy Olympiad Teacher Training 2017" to select teachers who will help the organizing National Astronomy Olympiad Organizing Committee- Nepal to organize 5th National Astronomy Olympiad 2018- Nepal.

Among all the applicants, five best applicants will be selected based on their motivation, academic history and interviews (both telephone and in person). 

Application without nomination letter from the college is not valid

They will participate in the upcoming Astronomy Olympiad Exposure Camp 2017 which will be held at Homi Bhabha Center for Science Education (HBCSE),Mumbai,India during October 31-November 3, 2017.

What is the objective of this Training?

The primary objective of this training is to select the five best applicants who will assist NASO to organize its astronomy olympiad in 2018. It also aims at productive interaction of our selected candidates at regional level (SAARC) with Olympiad activity at its focus.

What will be there at the training at HBCSE,Mumbai, India?

It will consist of various exposure sessions on theory, data analysis problems as well as night sky observation sessions. Tentative topics include celestial mechanics, observational astronomy, positional astronomy and observable properties of stars.

Who can apply? 

Anyone who has completed their masters degree in physics (preferrably with major astrophysics) and currently working as a physics faculty at one of the high school in Nepal can apply.

What will be the cost of participation?

Selected candidates will be reimbursed to and fro travel fare as per the entitlement (Maximum II AC). Food and accommodation in the HBCSE Guest House will be provided. During the workshop, one may visit HBCSE laboratories, library, History of Science Exhibition, HBCSE “books for sale” section, etc.

How to apply?

Interested candidate need to send

• one page motivation letter
• latest CV with photo and contact number
• nomination letter from their institute/college 

to contact@nepalastronomicalsociety.org by 5:00 PM, Friday, August 25, 2017. Incomplete application will not be processed for the selection round!

When will be the selection result available?

The result will be announced at our website on Tuesday, August 29, 2017 and provided with further instruction on the participation in India.

If you need any assistance while preparing your application, please feel free to call our office number 01-4110344 from 10:00 am till 5:00 pm during Sunday-Friday! You can also send your queries to our facebook page.

Looking forward to welcome your application!

Partial Lunar Eclipse Observed from Kathmandu!

A group of astronomy enthusiasts managed to observed the partial lunar eclipse last night despite of cloudy weather in Kathmandu. The observation program was organized at Ankur Vidhyashram, Bijay Chowk, Gausala during 10:00 PM till 01:00 AM (next day). Though it was a very late night event, we had several visitors to enjoy the eclipse with us.

Photo 1: Psoter for the observation program as advertised in our facebook page: www.fb.com/NepalAstronomicalSociety/

Photo 2: Group of visitor representing three generations (grand father, mother/father, son) waiting for clear weather at NASO office during the observation time.

Photo 3: Partial eclipse as seen from Kathmandu valley and captured by Ms. Manisha Dwa with her Canon 600D camera  

We used our 8 inch skywatcher dobsonian for the observation of the lunar eclipse where visitors also enjoyed the craters on moon and photographying themselves with telescopes!

We look forward to bring you more astronomical observing experience in coming days! Stay with us!

Note: NASO is hosted by Sano Sansar Youth Hostel (www.fb.com/sanosansarYH) and share premises with Ankur Vidhyashram located at Bijay Chowk, Gausala, Kathmandu, Nepal.

Nepal participates ITCA Colloquium in Thailand!

Eight teachers from different schools from Nepal will participate in the upcoming ITCA Colloquium 'Astronomy for STEM Education' in Bangkok, Thailand during August 7-11, 2017!

A pre-departure meeting was held at in Kathmandu to discuss and identify the common problems and strength of our school network in order to uptimize the knowldge that they will be getting from the colloquium.

Following a call by National Astronomical Research of Thailand (NARIT) in May, Nepali teachers applied for the program and eight of them are invited to become a part of this unique gathering of 100 Science Teachers / Educators worldwide. The deadline for application was July 10, 2017! Selected teacheres were notified via email on July 15 and confirmed their participation by July 21, 2017!

The selected teachers and their affiliations are as listed below (alfabetical order):

1. Anil Parajuli, Chhahari Shikshya Sadan School , Jorpati, Kathmandu
2. Gopal Niraula, Sushma Secondary School, Itahari, Sundari
3. Hari Kumar Ghimire, Tri-Chandra Multiple Campus, Ghantaghar, Kathmandu
4. Khagendra Katuwal, Private School, PABSON
5. Sagar Dahal, The Celebration Co-Ed School, Kathmandu
6. Sushil Bhattarai, Arunima Educational Foundation (AEF), Bouddha, Kathmandu
7. Tulsi Acharya, KU City College, Chabahil, Kathmandu
8. Yagya Raj Joshi, Ankur Vidhyashram, Gausala, Kathmandu

Er. Rishi Shah, Academician and Mr. Shekhar Shah, former chief and member secretary at Nepal Academy of  Science and Technology (NAST) shared on the role of NAST as a facilitator for the  initiatives of the teachers if they are really serious for teaching science in Nepal.

During the meeting Mr. Suresh Bhattarai, Chairman and Ms. Manisha Dwa, project coordinator at Nepal Astronomical Society (NASO) shared their experience on how we can get most out of such events and implement the ideas back in Nepal.

The meeting decided Mr. Anil Parajuli as a leader/focal point of conact for Nepali Delegation. Lets congratulate him and we hope he will be able to bring more from the training as discussed today!

The team is ready to fly to Bangkok on August 6, 2017 via Thai Airways to take part in the colloquium. Selected participants will get support for their local hospitality (hotel/travel/food, etc related to the event) while they have to take care of their expenses travel/visa/insurance on their own.

We wish the delegation for a successful participation next week!