Canadian International School of Egypt students in Saloum
From March 27 th to 31 st 2006, twenty high school students from the Canadian International School of Egypt went to observe, understand and live the experience of a total solar
eclipse at the border of Libya and Egypt (city of Saloum).
With the help of the Wadi Environmental Science Center (WESC), months of preparation were necessary to organize this trip. Camera filters, glasses and telescopes were brought from Canada, hotels had to be booked months ahead and tickets had to be bought from local authorities (it was not an easy task, trust me…). WESC flew a professional astronomer from Canada to help our students understand this event.
A total solar eclipse happens few times every decade and is the result of two important conditions: the moon being perfectly in between the Earth and the Sun, and the moon being at its closest point to Earth. Although some eclipses occur every 10 years, many are inaccessible to see. For example, the next one is in 2008 in Northern Canada, but is many hundreds of kilometers north of the North-West Territories.
The one we saw was the first since 2003 and was simply beautiful. The entire eclipse took over two hours, but the total darkness was 3 minutes 57 seconds. We could easily see many stars, Venus, some constellations and a green-orange horizon. Birds went to sleep and temperature dropped by several degrees (Saloum is in the desert).
During the total darkness, students, teachers and team leaders were screaming, some were crying and many described it as the best four minutes of their lives.
This five-day trip covered many objectives from the Ontario Curriculum, mostly from the Science grade 9 and Physics grade 12 course. Two days prior to the eclipse, the solar system was reviewed, Kepler’s laws were explained and a description of the phenomenon of eclipses was studied.
Students reviewed the concepts of centripetal acceleration, satellites in orbit and made calculations using the universal law of gravitation. In one of the many hands-on activities, students built their own star finder to locate stars and constellations in the sky at night.
After the eclipse, we traveled to Siwa oasis, which is located at the steps of the Great Sand Sea. Physical geography and some basic geology concepts were studied. Students went into the desert and found fossilized clams & sand dollars. Discussions of sustainability, water conservation and tourism were explored.
On our last evening, some bathe in hot springs and a big camp fire was lit before a long 12 hour bus ride back to Cairo.
Overall we traveled 2000km overland, camped three nights in tents (one night in hotel) and all of us lacked a lot of sleep… All of us will always remember this trip: the experience of a lifetime.
Ian Wikarski
Physics teacher
Canadian International School of Egypt
The Canadian International School of Egypt is a private K-12 school following the Ontario curriculum and is located in the suburbs of Cairo. Website here.