Post by Chicago Astronomer - Astro Joe on May 1, 2005 17:52:49 GMT -6
Murrieta Wal-Mart gives $17,000 telescope to Vista Murrieta
Vista Murrieta Principal Butch Owens received an astronomical gift in the form of a $17,000 Meade 16” telescope from Jim Isom of the Murrieta Wal-Mart Vision Center and Scott Roberts and Robert Price of Meade Instruments. Roberts said, “Kids will be able to see three to four billion light years away with this telescope.
It is a professional-grade system that will meet the needs of students through the college or university level and it is also used for research programs. The fact that you have two of these telescopes in Murrieta schools is incredible.” Wal-Mart’s Vision Center won the telescope for having sold the most Meade telescopes for the second year in a row. Last year, Wal-Mart presented an identical telescope to Murrieta Valley High School. In accepting the telescope Owens said, “We are so excited to receive this and the kids will be really excited when they see it. This kind of hands-on technology is a great way to connect kids with science.
In our district both high schools are part of a team with elementary and middle schools, so our blue team elementary students will also get to use this telescope.” VMHS science teachers Dan Litzenberg and Randy Johnson were also eager to get their hands on the telescope. Litzenberg said, “Next year we are offering a new Earth and space science course and this instrument will be a tool for hands-on observation so students can actually see what they are studying. It will be a lot more real to them than pictures in a book.” Johnson added, “The physics classes will get a lot of use out of this and it will be a great motivator for kids to start an astronomy club at our school.”
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Well that's cool!
Now...how do we win one of those?....
