A CWL Tour of the Okanagan

by Jayanne English

Although somewhat after the Wine Festival, mid-October is still a fine time to tour the Okanagan with a CASCA Westar Lecture (CWL) in tow. The Okanagan chapter of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada organized 4 venues associated with Okanagan College in 2 towns (Vernon and Kelowna) and audiences ranging from college students to retirees. My pleasant responsibility was to present talks demonstrating how astronomy images are made, while describing the scientific content in those images. The students at Okanagan College (Vernon) shook my hand with appreciation and the members of this energetic and active RASC chapter were very attentive and enthusiastic about my visit. Having aquired telescope mirrors, they have found a site for the observatory they plan to build and I also enjoyed hearing about their "sidewalk astronomy" outreach program. I expect that they will be particularly successful participants in the International Year of Astronomy 2009 activities.
An attentive and appreciative audience!	The author with Guy Mackie
Although moderately attended, the public lecture audience was attentive and interesting. (I would like to produce suggested promotion guidelines for groups arranging public lectures based on the experience of CASCA members who have organized such lectures, say for CASCA meetings. If you have suggestions please email me at Jayanne_English@umanitoba.ca.) I feel the most successful event of the Okanagan CWL tour was the 2 hours spent with the Society for Learning in Retirement, which was very well attended.  This is a peer education group and I used the opportunity to assign some pair-share issues and then wander about the audience to find out how individuals were approaching these questions.  There was a lot of energy and very good questions from the audience, which has an impressive knowledge of topics like synchrotron radiation!  Guy Makie did an excellent job of organizing this series of events, Richard Christie was tireless in his arrangement of venues and equipment, Colleen O'Hara - who drove me everywhere - provided me with information about the RASC and astronomy in the region, and Jim and Bitten Tisdale were most astounding hosts. This thoroughly enjoyable CWL tour, due to its proximatey, also provided the opportunity for a pleasant, brief visit with colleagues at DRAO.