Khagol RathGalileoMobile in India

Khagol RathGalileoMobile in India

Khagol Rath: GalileoMobile in India

The AuthorsDavid Bühler, María Dasí Espuig, Jayant Joshi, Jorge G. Rivero González

Design and LayoutKristine Omandap

PhotographersSandra Benítez Herrera, Megha Bhatt, María Dasí Espuig, Rajeeva Gowda, Philippe Kobel, Mayte Vasquez

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND license. To view a copy of these licenses, visit creativecommons.org. Other than as provided by these licenses, no part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or displayed by any electronic or mechanical means without permission from GalileoMobile or as permitted by law.

For every child that looks at the stars

Foreword Preface The Khagol Rath expedition Namaskara, welcome to the school! Teacher workshops Time for activities Epilogue Image credits

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Table of contents

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Meeting with people from a rural culturalarea, experiencing their hospitality, their views on nature and the skies as well as their livingconditions also enriched the young scientists views of our planet. In this way GalileoMobile also feeds back to its acting women and men.

GalileoMobile is a most successful teachingexperiment with mutual benefits between pupils and teachers. I wish this project all the best for its future activities!

June 2013

A picture is worth a thousand words! When first being contacted by the GalileoMobile team, I was already excited by the idea to spread knowledge on modern astronomy and space science into regions where pupils are not regularly presented with our modern cosmological ideas.

But when I saw the pictures from the project team’s activities in Karnataka I was electrified! Have a look at the faces of the young Indians, see their delight, their curiosity, their enthusiasm. The activities of young researchers forming GalileoMobile obviously initiated a whole lot of pleasure and fun. This certainly is the best reward to all those who became engaged in this project, investing their time and talent and other resources.

Foreword

Prof. Karl-Heinz Glassmeier

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The GalileoMobile initiative was born in late 2008 by a team of astronomers and communicators inspired by the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009). Our aim is to bring astronomy to the remote places in the world, which have never been touched before by outreach programmes. We all work together voluntarily for the project to prepare, organise, and carry out astronomy-related activities in schools and villages. We donate educational material and provide ongoing support, so that teachers can conduct astronomy activities beyond our visits. GalileoMobile goes one step further by pursuing a cultural exchange as well, to demonstrate that the sky is for everyone, that we all share it, and we all live under the same sky. We can all learn about its wonders in a fun way together. This multicultural aspect is also reflected in the diversity of our team members, who are from different countries all over the world.

For its first trip in 2009 GalileoMobile delved deep into the heart of the Andes, in an area bordered by the South American countries of Chile, Bolivia, and Peru. This expedition

was designated as a Special Project within the IYA2009 framework. GalileoMobile returned to South America in 2012 for a one week pilot expedition to the Amazon region in the Bolivian province of Pando. In the same year we took another step around the globe: India. The Khagol Rath, or Astro Chariot, expedition marked GalileoMobile’s first step outside of South America, taking place in the rural areas between the cities of Bangalore and Mysore. The experiences and contacts made during the Khagol Rath expedition will be a valuable stepping stone for us to organise an extended trip in the coming years to the heart of India.

During our first expedition the documentary `Under the same sky’ was filmed to share our experiences with the wider public, and thereby support the global character of the project. For the Khagol Rath expedition, we decided a photo-book would be a great way to share our experiences. We aimed to give the book a personal touch by intertwining photos with our stories, impressions, and anecdotes. In this endeavour we took hundreds of photographs

completely ignoring the fact that none of us are professional photographers. For us, the expedition to India meant a journey into a radically different culture. We were all eager to produce a book that would show how children go to school in India and how people in the rural areas received us. The photo-book will take you on a journey through a typical Khagol Rath day from our perspective.

Most village schools rarely encounter foreigners and are even less accustomed to the visit of an international astronomy outreach programme like us. The local communities, therefore, felt honoured and valued more than we could have imagined. They joyously celebrated our arrival, but we do not want to give away any of our experiences this early. You will have to continue reading to discover them.

Preface

In the course of producing the photo-book we always had the support of the entire GalileoMobile team and we would like to extend a big thanks to them. In particular, we want to thank Fabio del Sordo for helping us during the initial stages of the book as well as the people who provided the texts relating their experiences and adventures during the Khagol Rath expedition: Aída del Pilar Becerra Becerra, Sandra Benítez Herrera, Megha Bhatt, Chandrashekar G, Philippe Kobel, Smitha Rao, and Mayte Vasquez. We are certain that without them the photo-book would have had no heart. We hope that you will enjoy reading it as much as we did in producing it!

December 2013

David Bühler María Dasí Espuig

Jayant Joshi Jorge G. Rivero González

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The Khagol Rath expedition

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On the 2nd of July 2012 GalileoMobile started upon a two week journey to visit schools in India. We drove to rural villages between the Indian cities of Bangalore and Mysore in a van equally filled with astronomical equipment and excitement. The combination of astronomy and mobility gave the name to the expedition: Khagol Rath, which means Astro Chariot in Hindi. Each day we visited a different school. Some were primary and others were secondary government schools, giving us the chance to work with students between 7 and 16 years of age. In total we visited around 1,600 students in 12 schools. Have a look at the map to see where we went!

Philippe Sandra Pilar MeghaMayte María

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MysugarKrishnaraja Sagara Reservoir

Bangalore

Mysore

Cheemangala

Chowodadenahalli

Nayakarahalli

Kashettipalli

Thondegere

Honnudike

Gollahalli

Halgur Hobli Malavalli Taluk

Bidarahalli

Malavalli

Mysore Palace

Kolaramma Temple

Kyathanahalli

SavanadurgaState Forest

BasavanaBetta Forest

Bilikal Forest

DevarayanadurgaState Forest

Chintamani

River Kaveri

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Careful organisation is required to guarantee the success of an expedition. Our advantage was that two of our members are Indian, Megha Bhatt and Jayant Joshi. They initiated the collaboration with professional astronomers working in the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), the Jawaharlal Nehru Planetarium in Bangalore, and members of the Association in Bangalore of Amateur

Astronomers (ABAA). Our van quickly became crowded by the six GalileoMobile team members and 15 local collaborators. Kannada is the main language spoken in the state of Karnataka and especially in rural villages children only learn English by the time they get to secondary school. The GalileoMobile members and the local collaborators worked

closely together in overcoming the language barrier to transmit ideas and concepts to the children. The cooperation worked beyond our best expectations! The children were as excited as if we were speaking to them directly, and theenthusiastic speeches of the local collaborators added invaluable nuances that enriched the GalileoMobile activities.

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The GalileoMobile activities are directed at children in primary and secondary education. We perform fun, playful hands-on activities from our activities handbook aimed at transmitting astronomical ideas and concepts. In previous expeditions we realised that also teachers were always very interested in knowing about our activities and the materials we used. For this reason we included a teacher workshop in every school. After all, the teachers are the ones who will provide the necessary foundation that students will need during their academic education, and who can potentially keep alive a student’s interest in astronomy. Prior to the trip we met with ‘Galileo Ambassadors’ from the Galileo Teacher Training Programme (GTTP), who gave us useful advice on how to effectively lead and organise a workshop for teachers.

Our visits were always received most warmly in the schools, demonstrating how special they felt when astronomers from around the globe got together to work hand in hand with them in sharing their greatest passion: astronomy.

It was great to be a part of the Khagol Rath expedition. We are both from small villages in India and thus value scientific outreach programmes a lot, especially ones designed for school kids. It was a great learning experience being involved in the planning and execution of Khagol Rath. We realised that such an expedition is not only helpful for kids to learn exciting facts in a fun way, but also helpful for us as astrophysicists to learn the importance of conveying astronomy in an attractive way to the public. The experience we gained will surely be useful in the future and we are determined to organise and participate in many similar outreach activities for school kids in the future.

Megha and Jayant

On our way to school!

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9:30 a.m.

Upon our arrival at the school everyone was ready to welcome us. The school held a small ceremony where they showered us with flowers, wished us luck, and even sang a morning prayer to start off the day.

6:00 – 7:00 a.m.

We woke up very early and on the way to the school some of us would squeeze in a bit more sleep while others were on the lookout for a place to have breakfast.

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Our days were long and full of anecdotes!

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11:00 a.m.

In the teacher workshop we prepared activities from our activities handbook for the afternoon’s session with the children.

1:00 p.m.

Our first (and only) break came at lunch time. We bonded with the teachers over delicious Indian food kindly provided for us at the schools.

10:00 a.m.

Time for the first highlight of the day, the opening talk! An interactive journey from the schoolyard to the edge of the universe. It was always a very successful part of our visit!

Is it our turn now?

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2:00 p.m.

Constructing sundials, calculating the size of the Solar System or searching for sunspots were just a few of the many fun activities we did with the children.

5:00 p.m.

Our visit came to an end! As we left the school the van was often surrounded by cheering children waving goodbye.

Ready to spend a day with us?

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Namaskara, welcome to the school!

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A warm welcome always awaited us at every school. We saw the first glimpse of their joy andhospitality as soon as our van was approaching the school. Children were running around, waving their hands as well as banners, made especially for the occasion, and welcomed us to their school.

After unpacking our equipment, the headmaster, teachers, and students held a small welcoming ceremony. The children aligned themselves in rows in the schoolyard and sang prayers for us. These touching ceremonies would always fill us with joy and put a smile on our faces for the entire day.

Our programme was started off by our opening talk, giving us a chance to get know the children and explain basic astronomical concepts to them. After the opening talk, we presented a donation to the school comprised of a mountable 4 cm telescope with a tripod, a hard copy of the GalileoMobile activities handbook, an inflatable Earthball, and various posters, postcards, and booklets.

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During my visit to the first school in Bidarahalli, I got a glimpse of the warm welcome the team received at the entrance of the school. The school is situated amidst the greenery and its beauty lifted my spirit. At the entrance of each class we could see the names of great achievers like Kalpana Chawla, and Sachin Tendulkar written in bold Kannada letters.

Smitha

The students were always very curious about us, such as our way of dressing or speaking, or about the customs and traditions in our countries. They asked us about the most typical things in our cities or about the people living there. Some of them even asked us for advice about their studies and future career and expressed their enthusiasm in visiting us! Others, instead, would just sit near us, sometimes in silence and just let the time pass.

Sandra

An unbelievable ceremony was awaiting us. Songs about the stars had been specially written for us and interpreted with heavenly voices. Singing is a very popular way to express happiness in India, so the children were harmoniously tuned together (we would have liked to sing along but would have ruined everything). Large colourful flower necklaces (Hoovina Haara, in Kannada) were given to each one of us. And finally, one after the other, we had the chance to silently light the Deepa, the sacred candle.

Philippe

Where are we?

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Sandra kept the children in an atmosphere of curiosity throughout the opening talk, which finished with a big applause. At the end of her talk, the children actually understood where they were from and from where the GalileoMobile team had travelled to bring astronomy closer to them. The big blue Earthball rolled across the room and the children seemed to drown in a euphoric mood!

Smitha

We encouraged the children to be an active part of it, asking them questions so they could help us move forward in our virtual trip through the universe. We used visual and tactile materials such as astronomical images, an Earthball, and even a puppet called Tara to engage students.

María

The opening talk is built as an interactive virtual trip starting from the schoolyard and gradually zooming out to the local state, the country, the Earth, the planets of the Solar System, our galaxy, and beyond.

María

The students at the T.S. Subbranna High School, Kyathanahalli, learned a great deal from the presentations by the Khagol Rath team and the videos that brought the big universe into their classroom. The enthusiasm of the children to know more was matched by the team in a day filled with new knowledge for everyone!

Chandrashekar G 25

Her name is Tara, which means star in Kannada. She is 10 years old and she is a very beautiful little girl, with golden rebel hair, big pear-llike eyes and pink cheeks. But her most outstanding quality is her curiosity. She loves to look up at the stars, and, they say, the great Galileo Galilei himself used to teach her his secrets about the sky, some 400 years ago. Since then, she seems to remain forever young.

We decided to take her along on our trip to India. After saying goodbye to Pilar’s daughter Celeste, she came all the way from Colombia to India with Pilar. It was probably one of the best decisions we took, Tara is such a marvellous companion! We introduced her during our opening talk. All the children were eager to meet her; to meet the pupil of Galileo! And when her sparkling face finally popped through the window, a burst of joy filled the room. Tara showed her telescope to the children and shared her passion for the sky with them. Finally, to celebrate this moment of happiness, Tara was encouraging all the children to sing along with her. Singing is a way of expression that the children cherish very much. While the kids were waving their hands in an improvised choreography, all their voices were united in choir. Singing under the same sky.

A song about the Sun, composed by Pilar and Tara and written in the three languages spoken by the team (yes Tara is polyglot as well, another quality of hers)!

Philippe and Pilar

Sur yaSur yaSur ya

SunSunSun

SolSolSolSolSol

Surya Surya Suryaby Tara and Pilar

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At the end of the opening talk we would prepare for the virtual trip through the cosmos. We distributed colour paper to the children and teachers and asked them to roll it into a tube, while they were all wondering: “What is the purpose of this exercise?” “To explore the cosmos, we must look through our paper-telescopes!”, we told them as the movie started to play. Stars, nebulas, and galaxies zoomed past our paper-telescopes to the rhythm of the music. Children and adults gasped and shouted in excitement as we were about to collide with a huge galaxy at the end of our trip.

María

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Let’s explore the cosmos with our telescopes!

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Teacher workshops

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Following the opening talk, we dedicated the rest of the morning exclusively to the teachers. Teachers coming from other schools were also kindly invited to participate in our teacher workshops.

The main objectives of the workshop were twofold. First, to explain how to use the donation materials, especially how to mount the telescope, and second, to practise the selected activities from our activities handbook for the afternoon’s session with the children. We carefully adjusted the activities to best fit the childrens’ needs based on our impressions from the opening talk and the teachers’ comments. This was a key moment in our visits, since it gave the teachers the opportunity to familiarise themselves with the activities, so that they might perform them again in the future.

After a fruitful morning’s work, we had lunch together bonding over delicious Indian food.

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Most of the activities were new to them and they often asked for a detailed explanation. I remember one such incident when the teachers from the Primary School Cheemangla, asked us: “Why do we see only one side of the Moon?” We explained them this concept with the help of three students standing in as models for the Sun, the Earth and the Moon, their rotation and orbital periods.

Megha

We carefully showed them all the steps required in mounting the telescope, so they would not be afraid to use it on their own. We even passed around the lenses of the telescope for the teachers to recognise their different shapes. At the end of the session, most of them asked us to leave the telescope unmounted for future practice.

Mayte

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Lunch time!

Indian food habits are very particular. In some rural schools this meant eating with our fingers from banana leaves instead of plates, whilst mixing very different tastes. It was a lot of fun!

Sandra

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We liked Poori a lot, a kind of ‘inflated’ bread made from wheat, which we ate with some spicy sauce or on its own. For those who could not tolerate the spiciness (myself included!) there were butter and marmalade to put out the fire!

Sandra

Some people say that a good way to get to know another culture is through food. We had the opportunity to test this theory in a place abound with spices, colours and flavours. Some schools, as a welcoming present, offered us breakfast, fruits and sweets common in the region we visited. We tried a great variety of mangos and ate various forms of bread, such as Chapati, Dosa, Idli or Mendu Vada accompanied with various spicy chutneys paired with some tea or coffee.

Pilar

Women in India usually wear a traditional dress called a Sari. They are incredibly beautiful and come in all possible colours. We were always impressed on how pretty the teachers looked in them!

Sandra

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Even for some of the teachers it was their first time looking through a telescope, sparking excitement all around! The whole team was disappointed that the evening’s skywatching session was cancelled due to monsoon clouds, but we knew they would be looking at the wonders of the sky at the earliest opportunity!

Chandrashekar G

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Time for activities

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The activities with students started off right after lunch and lasted for around two hours. For this occasion everyone gathered in a common place and we divided the children up into four or five groups, depending on the number of scheduled activities. Each group was assigned to one activity along with up to two teachers, one GalileoMobile member, and one of our local collaborators.

Each activity took on average 30 – 45 minutes after which each group would move on to the next activity. A group of children would complete up to three or four activities over the course of an afternoon. We strongly encouraged the teachers to take the lead in their assigned activities, so they would be able to perform them in the future. It was a pleasure to see whenever they took the initiative to explain an activity to their pupils on their own.

What if we look at constellationsfrom another point of view?

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Swathi was a surprise for all of us. Sandra came to me with a broad smile and Swathi by her hand. “María, this little girl can speak English!” she told me. It made our day, we were so happy that we could communicate with her in a common language!

On this day we visited the Government Primary School in Chowodadenahalli, in the district of Malur. The children were between the ages of 6 and 10, and were excited that we had come. So, it was a bit frustrating when you had all these little faces around you wanting to speak to you and asking so many things, but you just cannot ... answer them. Our local collaborators would help us in these cases.

Swathi was our youngest helper. She came with her little brother from Bangalore after hearing that GalileoMobile would visit this school. You can see her wearing a pink shirt in the photos. She helped Megha with her group of children explaining to them in Kannada how to carry out the activity ‘Exploring the Moon’. She lives in Bangalore, where she attends school in English, but on this day she was working with us hand in hand.

María

Deep eyes and generous smiles were a constant in this experience, which was full of lessons for us. They were guided by these children, experts in seizing the day, enjoying life as it comes.

Pilar

We visited schools where English was not the first language, thus our local contacts were essential in communicating with the locals. We also relied on photographs, posters, and drawings. Even our facial expression, our hands or our body, were very useful tools in communicating with the children. For instance, Philippe used his body to explain how the Earth rotates around its own axis using a unique combination of balance, yoga, and breakdance moves!

Pilar

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Which planets have rings?

How many colours can you see?

What features can you recognise on the Moon?

How many times does theEarth fit into the Sun’s diameter?

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How big is our Solar System?

Uranus

Neptune

Earth Bumi

Jupiter Guru

Mars Mangala

Saturn ShaniVenus Shukra

Sun Surya

Mercury Budha

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It was amazing to see how encouraging the teachers were when explaining the activities to the students. They really put a lot of effort to make sure that the students could follow and understand the activities. We all enjoyed the time we spent together with the teachers since we shared knowledge and had the possibility to learn from their teaching skills!

Mayte

We often marvelled at how the teachers assimilated and adapted new concepts into their own teaching way, adding their own knowledge and personality to make these activities unique.

Philippe

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Nagaraju, 15 years old, was outstanding. He followed the whole explanation on how to measure the rotation of the Sun with such eagerness, that I just wished I could have had more time to answer all of his questions and to tell him more about the Sun! In the photo he is on the right showing his notebook, where he made his calculations to obtain the correct answer.

María

In the Government High School in Nayakarahalli, Kolar District, we worked with children betweenthe ages of 14 and 16 and, therefore, had prepared more challenging activities for them. Using images of the Sun taken over a series of days they had to measure how long it takes for the Sun to revolve once around its own axis.

María

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Other times we simply showed the students the amplifying power of a telescope by pointing to nearby mountains or hills.

Sandra

When a day was sunny we included a solar observation activity. We projected the image of the Sun on a piece of white paper, using the telescope. On a day when no sunspots are seen, the projected image just looks like a circle of light. During our two weeks in India, however, a huge group of sunspots developed on the Sun. On the circle of light we could see the group of sunspots as dark blobs. We even managed to see the details of the sunspots’ structure! Although I am a solar physicist, I had never done solar projection before since I usually work with satellite images ... sad to say because, oh I will remember this day. I never thought it would be so exciting! No need of special equipment or instruments. Just a simple telescope and a piece of white paper and there it was! This activity also had an impact on the children, who were learning about sunspots for the first time and did not expect to see anything on the projected image of the Sun. I was showered with questions during the activity and was delighted to see their interest.

María

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It must be because I am a solar astronomer, or perhaps because I am Swiss? Whatever thereason, my favourite activity with the children is the ‘Equatorial Sundial’ from our activitieshandbook. Is it not amazing to assemble a functional clock with no more than a piece of paper and a pencil? What kind of magic makes the apparent motion of the Sun repeat itself every day, so regularly that we can simply use it to count the time? It is so periodic thanks to the laws of physics!

You must actually do it to believe it. Let us project the shadow of a pencil on a piece of paper. The tricky part is to get everybody to understand why we need to incline the pencil parallel to the Earth’s rotation axis. The best, or at least the funniest, way I found was to transform my own body into a big pencil, inclining myself parallel to the Earth’s axis in a pushup position (luckily near Bangalore the latitude is only 13° north). I started to rotate around my own axis just as the Earth does, always keeping one hand on the floor to avoid falling. The children loved the little improvised move, and they could grasp the idea that from my point of view (which is also the point of view of the pencil) the Sun would remain at a constant height in the sky and make a full turn around me in 24 hours. Hence my shadow, just like the pencil’s shadow, would actually behave as the needle of a clock!

Fun enough, but the moment of truth was coming. We directed all our sundials towards the North Pole and then all the children would come over to me to see what their paper sundials marked, still doubtful of their little fragile construction. “So what time is it now?”, I would ask while showing them my hand-watch. “1 p.m. sir! It is 1 p.m.!!” Both dials showed the same time!”

Philippe

What time is it?

Time to go home

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And so another day has passed, filled with flavours, smells and colours, ideas, thoughts and fascination, yet it hardly was an ordinary day. Questions arose both simple and profound, and answers new and old were told fostering new ideas and nourishing old fascinations. A little inspiration is often all it takes to lay out the road ahead even when it aims for the stars, and when it all seems too far, an encouraging smile or a supportive remark can be all that is necessary to compel us to keep going. While GalileoMobile strove towards the heart of India in an effort to bring astronomy to the smallest of places, the captivating people we met there were eager to be given the chance to bring their ideas to the world. For a look at the stars above makes us all equally young and foolish and yet old and wise, making us as one under the same sky.

Epilogue

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Image credits

Cover ImageChildren with Earthball – María Dasí Espuig

Foreword Page 6Karl-Heinz Glassmeier portrait – Karl-Heinz Glassmeier

Preface Page 8David Bühler portrait – María Dasí EspuigMaría Dasí Espuig portrait – David BühlerJayant Joshi portrait – Aishwarya PaknikarJorge Rivero González portrait – María Dasí Espuig

Page 9Teachers and children holding Earthball – María Dasí Espuig

Page 10GalileoMobile team with banner – María Dasí Espuig

Page 12Hema Bharadwaj P. – María Dasí EspuigDipankar Banerjee – María Dasí EspuigSmitha Rao – María Dasí EspuigRavindra B. – María Dasí EspuigK. Chandrashekhar Reddy – María Dasí EspuigAnusha Seetharam – Sandra Benítez Herrera

Mohan Shivaramu B S – María Dasí EspuigP. R. Vishwanath – Sandra Benítez HerreraArun R. Bharadwaj – María Dasí EspuigChandrashekar G – María Dasí EspuigHari Gaurav – María Dasí EspuigRajeeva Gowda – María Dasí EspuigAkshay M. A. Kumar – María Dasí EspuigDilip Kumar – María Dasí EspuigSiva Shankara Sastry – Sandra Benítez Herrera

Page 13GalileoMobile team, teachers, and local collaborators – School staff memberAlphabet wall mural – María Dasí EspuigFloor decoration– Philippe KobelColourful cloth– Sandra Benítez Herrera

Page 14On the road - Sandra Benítez Herrera

Page 15Unloading the van – María Dasí EspuigGroup picture standing – María Dasí EspuigSandra enjoying the ride – María Dasí EspuigGirls dressed in white – Sandra Benítez HerreraGroup inside the van – María Dasí EspuigLittle boy – María Dasí Espuig

Page 16Philippe and Pilar hiding among children – María Dasí Espuig

Page 17Pensive girl with flowers– María Dasí EspuigBoy with checkered shirt – María Dasí EspuigBoy with papertelescope – María Dasí EspuigFood on leaf – María Dasí EspuigChildren holding postcards – María Dasí EspuigMegha and two teachers – Rajeeva GowdaTeacher using telescope – María Dasí EspuigTeacher mounting telescope – María Dasí EspuigSmiling girls – María Dasí Espuig

Page 18Children running – María Dasí Espuig

Page 19Children waving hello – Philippe KobelBoys sitting on red floor – María Dasí EspuigTwo boys looking up – María Dasí EspuigRunning child with open arms – María Dasí EspuigChildren waving goodbye – María Dasí EspuigMayte, Smitha, and teacher in council meeting – María Dasí Espuig

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Page 20Portrait of girl – María Dasí Espuig

Page 21Welcome ceremony – Staff member from school

Page 22A welcoming blackboard – María Dasí Espuig

Page 23Child shaking hands with Mayte – María Dasí EspuigGirls with María and Sandra – Mayte VasquezPilar with garland – Rajeeva GowdaTwo girls singing – María Dasí EspuigFour roses and a candle – Megha Bhatt

Page 24Akshay and Sandra looking smug – María Dasí Espuig

Page 25K. Chandrashekhar during opening talk – María Dasí EspuigGirl pretending to be Atlas – María Dasí EspuigMegha and Chandrashekar G next to a window – María Dasí EspuigSmitha with children holding planets – María Dasí Espuig

Chandrashekar G with embracing arms – Mayte VasquezAkshay, Sandra, and Earthrise – María Dasí Espuig

Page 26Pilar, Megha, and Tara – María Dasí Espuig

Page 27Philippe peeking through window – María Dasí EspuigMayte and children looking at a nebula – María Dasí Espuig

Page 28Everyone looking through paper-telescopes – María Dasí Espuig

Page 29Presenting the donation material – María Dasí EspuigSandra holding the handbook – María Dasí EspuigChildren holding astronomical postcards – María Dasí Espuig

Page 30Sitting in a circle – Megha Bhatt

Page 31Teachers being students – María Dasí Espuig

Page 32Handling the telescope – María Dasí EspuigThe Moon in pieces – Rajeeva GowdaTeacher with green dress – Philippe KobelTwo teachers and slides – María Dasí EspuigTeachers huddling –Sandra Benítez Herrera

Page 33Teachers, telescope and tripod – María Dasí EspuigPink Sari – María Dasí EspuigMayte and teachers – María Dasí EspuigSandra smiling – María Dasí Espuig

Page 34Teacher using the telescope – María Dasí Espuig

Page 35Megha serving food – María Dasí EspuigTeacher cutting banana leaves – María Dasí EspuigGroup sitting at a table – María Dasí EspuigBanana leaves and cups – María Dasí Espuig

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Page 36Poori and chutneys – María Dasí EspuigWomen serving lunch – María Dasí EspuigTwo men and Idli – María Dasí Espuig

Page 37Phil, Megha, and teachers outdoors – Mayte Vasquez

Page 38Three children – María Dasí Espuig

Page 39Girl working on an activity – María Dasí Espuig

Page 40Pilar and children – María Dasí Espuig

Page 41Megha at the centre of a circle – María Dasí EspuigChildren playing with Tara – Sandra Benítez HerreraTwo little girls – María Dasí EspuigBoy in yellow overall – María Dasí Espuig

Page 42Three girls and model Sun – María Dasí EspuigBoy with matchbox spectroscope – María Dasí Espuig

Children completing the Moon – María Dasí EspuigChildren drawing Saturn’s rings – Mayte Vasquez

Page 43K. Chandrashekhar and María with model Solar System – Sandra Benítez Herrera

Page 44Akshay and model Sun – María Dasí EspuigTeachers with Earthball and model Sun – Philippe KobelChildren next to green door – Philippe KobelRavindra and Mayte inside classroom – María Dasí EspuigTeacher smiling – Sandra Benítez Herrera

Page 45Three boys with notebooks – María Dasí EspuigBlue paper among slides – María Dasí EspuigGroup of boys – María Dasí Espuig

Page 46Philippe and Hema surrounded by children – Mayte VasquezBoy looking through the telescope – María Dasí EspuigQueue of children – Megha Bhatt

Page 47Students building sundials – María Dasí EspuigMegha and Akshay with children – María Dasí Espuig

Page 48Children running – María Dasí Espuig

Epilogue Page 49Waving goodbye – María Dasí Espuig

Back coverPortrait of girl – María Dasí Espuig

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The Khagol Rath expedition was kindly sponsored and supported by

www.galileo-mobile.org