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Mercury, January/February 1999 Table of Contents

Dmitri Yu. Klimushkin, Russian Academy of Sciences, Irkutsk

Located near famous Lake Baikal in eastern Siberia, Russia, Irkutsk is a city of about 600,000 people and a large cultural and scientific center with several universities and research institutes. I live here and am a scientist who studies the theory of hydromagnetic wave propagation in cosmic plasma at the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics (ISTP). The Institute, equipped with a number of unique instruments such as the Solar Vacuum Tower Telescope, the Horizontal Solar Telescope, a coronagraph, and the Solar Radiointerferometer, is as a whole dedicated to research on the Sun and its influence on the Earth. In addition to this astronomical equipment, the State University of Irkutsk has an astronomical observatory which investigates Pole movement and maintains the time service.

The Importance of Amateur Astronomy

The first club for amateur astronomers in Irkutsk was organized by Kira S. Mansurova, the previous director of the University observatory. The English translation of the Club's name is "The astronomy section of 'Knowledge' pupil scientific society." I should point out that the training of future professional astronomers is important but not the main purpose of amateur astronomy organizations, and of general astronomy education, as well, in Russia. Perhaps its most important aim is popularization of the science among young people in order to make them scientific literate persons who know the basic principles of astronomy and have a notion about scientific methodology. This idea was behind the efforts of Mansurova. She was a wise person and a very good tutor who could attract the children's attention to the sky. Many of the boys and girls who studied astronomy under her leadership have become scientists and educators: Among them are Sergey A. Yazev, present director of the University observatory; Yuri A. Chigrin, the Club's leader after K.S. Mansurova; and me.

The beginnings of amateur astronomy in Irkutsk. Young astronomers from "The astronomy section of 'Knowledge' pupil scientific society" studying a map of the night sky in 1975. Kira S. Mansurova, founder of the Club, is in the center of the image. The boy on the left is Yuri A. Chigrin, who became leader of the Club after Mansurova. Photo courtesy of author.

While the Club is no longer active, its existence lead to the formation of two other amateur astronomy clubs. One of them is called "Children's Cosmocenter"; headed by Elena S. Sherstova, its members are children eight to twelve years old. Someone may wonder how such little kids can learn astronomy, a science that requires knowledge of much physics and mathematics. But all of the boys and girls like to draw: Sherstova invented a teaching method in which the children draw distant worlds, real and fantastic, under her direction. They learn to imagine the universe and its physical laws, while at the same time develop their creative abilities and inquisitiveness.

The other organization for amateur astronomers in Irkutsk is "Astroclub," headed by Edward G. Zuev. This gentleman's contribution to the propagation of astronomy knowledge is inestimable: He often organizes popular "open nights" for students and teachers to tell them about constellations and show them planets, the Moon, and deep-sky objects through a telescope. Although the Astroclub is nice for socializing and one where you can listen to music (only classical!), its main activity is making telescopes, and its biggest instrument is a 0.25 meter Newtonian-Cassegrain reflector. But in my opinion the greatest achievement of the Astroclub is design and construction of a Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope, perhaps the first home-made telescope of this kind in Russia. The boys who made this instrument are now the scientists and engineers at ISTP. The Astroclub telescopes are used for photography of the planets and deep sky objects. In 1997 several Astroclub members joined an ISTP expedition to "Erofey Pavlovich" station to observe the solar eclipse on 9 March; despite a temperature of -40Ó F, they took excellent photos of the corona. In addition, the young astronomers held several lectures for the local people about the Sun, the Moon, and eclipses.

General view of the total solar eclipse on 9 March 1997. The three-minute exposure was made at "Erofey Pavlovich" station. Note the planets Mercury and Venus below the Sun. Photo by "the Astroclub" and courtesy of author.

Formal Astronomy Education

Astronomy is a compulsory part of the school program in Russia, though this course is only thirty to thirty-five academic hours in duration. My main activity is scientific research at ISTP, but I am also an astronomy teacher at the school called "The Lyceum attached to the State University of Irkutsk." I have about one hundred high school students, aged sixteen to seventeen years, who study in four groups of four majors - physics and mathematics, economics, chemistry and biology, and the humanities. The students choose their major, but astronomy is a subject that is taught to every group because it helps the students understand their place in space and time.

The program is designed according to the principle, "From the nearest to the most distant." The first part of the program is concerned with visual phenomena (daily movement of heavenly bodies, eclipses, the Moon's phases, etc), and then we study the methods of astronomical investigations¨telescopes, observatories, and space astronomy.

After that we proceed to the Solar System, using a phenomenological approach. To this point students have had a casual approach; now they find they must be "more scientific" in their studies as they begin to learn about comparative planetology. It is interesting that in the beginning of our classes the students usually ask questions such as, "Have you ever seen a UFO ?" and "What is your Zodiac sign ?" By the middle of the astronomy course, however, the questions are changed, and "Why?" has become the popular interrogative: "Why did Comet Hale-Bopp have two tails ?" and "Why are there so many volcanoes on Io?"

Above: A discussion in the Children's Cosmocenter. In the back center and surrounded by children is head of the Cosmocenter, Elena S. Sherstova.
Below: "A Glacial Planet." The picture is by eleven-year-old Ira Antonova, a student at the Children's Cosmocenter. Photos courtesy of author.

In the middle of the course we begin to study stars and stellar systems using a stricter approach with a bit more math. The students learn to calculate stellar distances, masses, temperatures, and luminosities. I pay quite a lot of attention to the origin and evolution of cosmic structures, and my students learn to interpret the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram of star clusters so they can evaluate the clusters' ages. Of course, the students are especially interested in the evolution of the Sun.

Although the area of astronomy most difficult for students to understand is cosmology, my students like it very much. They ask questions like "How can the universe expand if it is unbounded?" and "Where was the place of Big Bang?" I believe the reason for such an interest is imaginary contradiction between our so-called common sense and the conception of an unbounded but expanding, curved space. When students study this science they simultaneously learn something new about themselves.

Only a few of my students will become professional astronomers, yet this does not bother me. I think their study of astronomy helps them to find their direction in our complicated world because they learn the basic principles of the scientific method: They learn to distinguish the truth from various myths and non-truths that infest mass-media today (astrology, ufology, creationism, etc.). Thus, the study of astronomy forms the culture of thought. Further, astronomy can be a bridge between the individual and the rest of the physical world. Unfortunately, our educational bureaucrats here do not realize this. Frequently astronomy is considered an unimportant science compared to, say, physics. I know this perception is wrong, however, for when I was a boy, I studied astronomy and this led me to become a physicist. I can say the same is true for many of my friends and former students, too.

There are also some difficulties in our astronomy education that result from Russia's economic problems. First of all, there exists a scarcity of information about astronomy and space science news because too few popular books and journals on astronomy are published in Russian. In addition, there is not much illustrative astronomy material (the "pretty pictures") available to us. Such material is very important because slides, posters, and videoprograms are instructive and easily attract students' attention to astronomy. Regrettably, I do not know any firm in Russia that is engaged in preparing and distributing such material. Although Russia is an open country now, we cannot afford ordering the materials from overseas since our education programs are inadequately financed.

The author and young astronomer Arkadi Vysotski are preparing to observe the June 1990 solar eclipse. Photo courtesy of author.

Despite these difficulties, Russia is one of the few countries where astronomy is learned as a subject like physics or chemistry or history. Through formal astronomy education and amateur astronomy clubs, our students are reaching for the stars.

DMITRI YU. KLIMUSHKIN is a researcher at the Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Irkutsk, and an astronomy teacher at The Lyceum attached to the State University of Irkutsk. His email address is klimush@iszf.irk.ru.