Saadat A Siddiqi and Muhammad Sabieh Anwar describe how a series of astronomy events in Pakistan over the past year could help to boost the public's interest in the subject
As the International Year of Astronomy (IYA2009) draws to a close, hundreds of organizations around the world can look back on a hugely successful last 12 months celebrating our understanding of the universe. There have been events all over the globe, including in Pakistan, where the Khwarizmi Science Society (KSS) – one of the country’s most active grass-roots science associations – has held numerous “astrofests”, or falakyati melas, as they are known in Urdu. The astrofests are the society’s latest initiative in popularizing science and bringing modern scientific knowledge to remote and far-flung areas of the country.
The KSS, which was founded in 1997, seeks to promote science in Pakistani universities by holding seminars, workshops, field visits, conferences and panel discussions for undergraduate and research students. However, the society also recognizes that most Pakistani students entering university are not adequately prepared for the rigours of advanced physics. Without doubt, the country needs a massive overhaul of the way science and physics are taught in primary and secondary schools: the current approach is based largely on textbooks, with little or no emphasis on real scientific activity.
It was in an attempt to promote science in schools and among the general population that the KSS decided to take part in the IYA2009. Our idea was to build a roving observatory and use astronomy as a means of promoting science education in distant and rural schools by showing students – and, just as importantly, their teachers – that science can indeed mesmerize and inspire. It was an approach that proved a real success.
Seeing the Moon
One evening in April, for example, we held a live astronomical observation of the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn and Venus at the Okara District Public School and College in the Punjab, which drew over 2000 men, women and children to an event that was transformed into a festive carnival by the school headmaster. To bring these heavenly bodies “live” to our enthralled audience, we simply connected our 14-inch Schmidt-Cassegrain Celestron telescope’s eyepiece to a high-resolution CCD camera and projected the resulting images onto multimedia screens.
While the astronomers – led by Umair Asim, an astronomer by passion and school teacher by profession – were setting up their equipment, Okara’s headmaster Mazhar Hussain arranged an impromptu competition in which attendees were invited to recall verses from Urdu literature about the Moon, which is a popular poetic icon and used as a simile for the beloved.
Once their gear was up and running, the audience were delighted at what they saw, although the lunar craters surprised many who were used to the Moon’s established literary image! The magnificent rings of Saturn certainly grabbed everyone’s attention and older people were particularly delighted as they were shown various stellar constellations that matched their horoscopes.
Similar melas have also been arranged in Lahore’s Punjab University and at a large school in Phoolnagar, some 70 km from the provincial capital Lahore. These events have attracted several thousand schoolchildren and our most inspiring mela took place in September in an all-girls school in Shahdara, along the banks of the river Ravi. We have so far organized eight astrofests, travelling throughout the country with our mobile observatory, each time focusing on different celestial bodies, notably the Moon and the planets.
The response has been so overwhelming that we have now decided to extend these activities into 2010. Luckily, we have now added an optical microscope to our gear and plan to show our enthralled spectators, a glimpse of the microbial world alongside the heavenly macrocosm.
Mouths wide open
It has been a real delight seeing parents, teachers, children, housewives and toddlers, all sitting together, mouths wide open, revelling in the magnificent views of lunar shadows, craters named after Arab scientists (Albatenius, Averroes, Alberuni), the mythical Pleiades, the tilt of the Saturn rings, and Jupiter’s awe-inspiring moons. Schools have even sent out invitations to nearby schools, while in remote areas – where the internet is virtually non-existent – we use the local mosque loudspeaker to announce the festivals.
Most of our audiences will never have looked through a telescope before and we believe that even these brief moments of bliss can have a lasting impact on their thoughts, hopes and choices. In particular, we hope that our events will encourage schoolchildren to choose careers in science, astronomy and physics and are glad that many of them asked our team questions about careers in Pakistan’s space agency (SUPARCO) as well as in NASA.
We wanted to use astronomy [to show] that science can mesmerize and inspire
Perhaps the most memorable event took place on 30 May, which saw a gathering of about a thousand local residents and tourists at the historic Rohtas Fort in Jhelum, a couple of hours’ drive north of Lahore. The fort, which was completed in 1547, is a blend of Indo-Afghan architecture and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. One of the gates inside the Fort is the Suhail Gate, named after the star bearing the same Arabic appellation (it is known as Lambda Velorum in modern catalogues). Interestingly, there is a saintly dervish with the name Suhail Bukhari who is now buried at the gate, epitomizing the confluence of science and tradition that has shaped the country.
Poetry please
Through the KSS outreach activities, we have found that physics and astronomy can be best introduced to the general public if these subjects are placed in their wider cultural and social contexts. For example, our wonderful astronomer Umair Asim freely uses the local vernacular (Punjabi) as well as Urdu in his demonstrations. Moreover, we have found that recitations of poetry during breaks in the events help to attract people who, in most cases, have refined tastes for poetry and music.
Our society’s events can also help to educate Pakistani people about science, people who are often poorly informed by the media. For example, the solar eclipse that took place on 23 July this year saw the media reporting many silly superstitions associated with such natural phenomena, such as the claim that pregnant women needed to be protected from the evil influence of an eclipse, or that an eclipse can heal the disabled.
Our society’s events can also help to educate Pakistani people about science, who are often poorly informed by the media.
In that vein, the society now plans to produce some short, simple pamphlets explaining natural phenomena such as eclipses, tides, seasons and phases of the moon for parents and children. The latter is particularly important in the context of moonsighting, which marks the start and end of the Islamic months and also the occasion of the religious Eid festivals, whose timing has now become a source of dispute in the country.
In the coming months, the Khwarizmi Science Society plans to continue its scientific festivities and falakyati melas with even greater vigour in a bid to entice and incite the minds and hearts of the astronomers and physicists of the future.
