Product review

Allow me to begin by saying that I am neither affiliated with the publisher whose product I am reviewing nor am I sponsored by said publisher.

This astronomy learning set for children caught my eye when I was shopping at the MPH bookstore at JB City Square Mall a couple of weeks ago. Published by Parragon, it retails for RM54.90

It comes with a 64-page factivity book, a small torch, a double-sided poster, cutouts of Earth and the Moon, and 4 circular disks with punch outs depicting constellations.

I found it fascinating despite the product being made for kids. The factivity book comes with tons of adorable illustrations with facts for children to learn and activities for them to do. Some pages contain instructions on how to make objects such as a spacecraft with everyday household items while other pages contain stuff that you can doodle on.

The double-sided poster is a wonderful inclusion that complements the book. I am planning to use it to teach children in future outreach sessions about our Solar System. It is an item which I can easily carry about.

Cutouts of the Earth and the Moon are also interesting to have. I can use the small torch provided to explain and demonstrate eclipses. They were thoughtful enough to provide a paper stand for the cutouts which I was quite pleased with.

The 4 punch out disks of constellations are great for showmanship to entertain the kids and lets them remember how to identify certain popular constellations in a fun way. This can be easily done with a piece of paper with some pinholes though. But for the novelty of it, I'd say it's a welcome item.

Overall, I am absolutely satisfied with the product and may get more as prize giveaway for kids in future astro events.

If you like what you are seeing, you can check out their other Factivity products here: https://www.parragon.co.uk/products/factivity/?page_number=3

"Education" system

Just came back from holding an outreach session at West Coast Park and I want to talk about something that's on my mind.

A 12-year-old kid who is in Primary 6 came up to me with much curiosity while his parents were fishing nearby. The boy was seemingly interested in astronomy as he was asking many questions about the subject matter and even helped out with the outreach by telling passerbys what he saw and urged them to come have a look through the telescope. You could tell that he was hardly able to contain his excitement. When the crowd dwindled, we traded stories with each other. We hit it off real well and hours had gone by just like the wind.

Then the boy shared a poignant story about his school. The story took place during the partial solar eclipse that was viewable in Singapore last year. Apparently, his school had planned to view the partial solar eclipse that day but some of his classmates, including himself, were mischievous and that had got the entire class under detention thus missing the entire spectacular moment.

Personally, I feel that the school should have let the students enjoy the event first and mete out any punishments later.

Moral of the story - you can postpone a disciplinary action, but you cannot postpone a celestial phenomenon. Set your priorities straight.

I will neither name the boy nor identify the school. I am sharing this story with all educators out there so that such mistakes can be avoided in the future.