He thinks of himself as a tour guide of the sky.
Taghum astronomer Wayne Holmes visited summer students from the Strange But True Summer Reading Club at the Trail and District Public Library’ on Tuesday afternoon.
Children from the Creative Expressions group were assigned a group of books to read about the solar system, answer questions about their reading assignments and learned how to use two different telescopes.
In addition, each child borrowed a pair of special sunglasses from Holmes to look directly at spots on the sun without hurting their eyes at the end of the day.
“I think (Tuesday) went really well,” said Hilary Chayko, a summer student employee.
“Seeing the telescopes and being able to see the sun without the fear of it actually hurting their eyes was really good. When I was talking to some of the kids about what we were going to be doing, most of them actually said ‘you can’t look at the sun it hurts your eyes.’”
Astronomy is one of the oldest forms of science in the world, it involves looking at stars, planets and galaxies. But each week brings something new to the literary frontier.
The free summer camp is part of a province-wide initiative to keep kids reading outside of the school year, and it features a special guest and a new topic every Tuesday afternoon at 2:30.
For more information about summer reading programs, visit http://trailsummerreading.squarespace.com/, and to find more about the Kootenay Association for Science and Technology’s astronomy program visit, http://www.kast.com/GLOWS/Astronomy.