MAHALO HAWAI‘I for exploring the Un iverse with us! Your friends and neighbors at Gemini Observatory appreciate your participation and support in humanity’s quest to understand our place in the cosmos. Sunday, December 24, 2017 19 Take a Journey Through the Universe Journey Through the Universe has entered more than 300 class-rooms each year for the past 14 years, according to Gemini Observatory outreach manager Janice Harvey. The Gemini-led program sends more than 80 observatory professionals to talk with students about the cosmos and share their passion for science. But it wasn’t guaranteed it would last this long. Hawaii Island’s Journey Through the Universe was initially one of several around the country, but their funding ran out in the second year, Harvey said. She said local businesses and organizations have stepped in to provide the money to sustain and grow the effort. Harvey said it started in the Waiakea complex schools but now is nearly an islandwide program. “We decided as a community we were going through with it,” she said. Harvey said the observatories see it as part of their “moral obligation” to the island that supports them. “It piques their interest” in science, she said. “It’s about much more than astronomy.” The program visits classrooms from kindergarten through 12th grade. For students who want to pursue a job at a telescope, there’s the Akamai Internship Program. Austin Barnes, program manager, said they place college students at observatories and other high-technology businesses in the state. They are set up with mentors and gain valuable realworld experience in fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, commonly known as STEM. The program started in 2003 and has helped more than 350 Hawaii students. Barnes said it helps many find careers in Hawaii when they may think that’s not possible in their fields. “I was of the mind I would have to leave like a lot of people are,” said Barnes, a former intern. Akamai is funded by the Hawaii Community Foundation, Thirty Meter Telescope, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, National Science Foundation, Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope and National Solar Observatory. Email Tom Callis at tcallis@ hawaiitribune-herald.com. By TOM CALLIS Hawaii Tribune-Herald André-Nicolas Chené of the Gemini Observatory tells third- grader Dazlyn Urbanozo -Alves about the distances between stars in 2015 during the Journey Through the Universe program. HOLLYN JOHNSON/ Tribune-Herald Hawaii Tribune-Herald
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