Students at Dutch Fork High School spent the night exploring science during a STEM Lock-In held the weekend of March 6–7.
Members of the school’s astronomy program set up telescopes late Friday night into Saturday morning, allowing about 20 students and several teachers to observe the waning gibbous moon.
During the session, students viewed the lunar maria — dark plains on the moon’s surface first observed by Galileo Galilei in 1609. Later named mare, meaning “seas” in Latin, by Johannes Kepler and Giovanni Battista Riccioli, early astronomers once believed these areas contained water.
Participants were also able to roughly locate the landing site of Apollo 11 Moon Landing, when astronauts Neil Armstrong, Michael Collins, and Buzz Aldrin reached the moon in 1969.
In addition to lunar observations, students also viewed two of Jupiter’s Galilean moons through the telescopes.
The overnight event gave students the chance to combine classroom learning with hands-on astronomy while experiencing the night sky firsthand.
