ALMATY – On April 20, 130 of the country’s best secondary school students gathered at the Bobek National Scientific and Practical Educational and Health Centre for a national forum of young astronomers and astronauts. Amid them were winners of competitions and conferences on astronomy and space, members of national astronomical workshops and talented young people involved in astronomic and space scientific groups.
“Astronomical space education is a priority not only in Kazakhstan, but also in world education,” Bobek CEO Professor Korlan Zhampeisova said. “The fact that our children are actively involved in various national and international competitions and win prizes is a convincing example of it.”
The head of the centre added that today much attention is given to astronomy due to its importance in many aspects of life, including economics, agriculture and meteorology. Space education in Kazakhstan includes a system of additional training after children make an initial choice about their future profession in the seventh and eighth grade.
Among Kazakhstan’s stars in international competition at the gathering are students of the ‘Self-Cognition’ Gymnasium Nikolay Egovtsev and Artem Kozulin, Daulet Kurmantayev from school-lyceum No. 165 and Azamat Kaliyev from Bobek Observatory Centre.
President of Kazakhstan’s National Academy of Sciences Murat Zhurinov congratulated the participants on behalf of the scientific community.
“The desire to discover the world has always existed in mankind,” he said. “Today, nanotechnologies help us. You are walking a true and important path, and I wish you to always remain such purposeful and inquisitive persons.” The head of the scientific department expressed hope that many participants will choose the challenging path of researcher and make a real contribution to science.
The participants took part in an academic competition, met with interesting people and visited the Astrophysical Institute and the Tien Shan Mountain Observatory.
The team from secondary school No. 31 from Taraz included five young people. Together they were involved in the development of projects and helped each other conduct research and construct models with their supervisor, Andrey Sohn.
“My project is a model of an electromagnetic accelerator created to replace flying satellites launched from the earth,” said Konstantin Scherbakov, one of the five students in the group. “And my colleagues developed projects like transmitting information on a laser beam, space rovers and a rocket engine based on the Biefeld-Brown effect. We hope to win a prize.”
“I have been actively engaged in natural-scientific subjects since seventh grade, because I like to discover nature and the world around us,” ninth grade student at specialised lyceum No. 165 Daulet Kurmantaev said. “I am interested in physics, astronomy, chemistry, biology. I am lucky to take part in such events, because astronomy in Kazakhstan is a developing science.”
The jury included Kazakh cosmonaut Aydin Aimbetov, scientists, astronomers and physicists from the Umirzak Sultangazin Institute for Space Studies, the Vasiliy Fesenkov Astrophysical Institute, the Abu-Nasr Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, the Abay Kunanbayev Kazakh National University and colleagues from Kyrgyzstan.
