Student Grant Awarded

The SARA student grant committee comprised of Kerry Smith, Jim Brown and Bill Lord announces a grant has been awarded to Wesley Thomas of Ohio. Wesley has requested an Itty Bitty Telescope (IBT) to be used to demonstrate the principles of radio astronomy to students.

Wesley has the support of his science teacher and counselor at school to take the IBT to classrooms not only at his school but surrounding schools as well to show students and talk about radio astronomy. Wesley and his grandfather Dave Thomas
attended the SARA conference at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, WV last summer.

Wesley became interested in the IBT and radio astronomy as a result of his grandfather’s involvement and what he learned at the conference.

Bill Seymour donated the IBT he had from the Navigator program that was shipped to Wesley. Kerry Smith will be working with Wesley as his mentor on the IBT. We look forward to reports from Wesley on his outreach program to students.