The school’s clubs are exploring the natural world, delving into the wonders of the outdoors through saving wildlife and observing the stars.

Wild for Wildlife

While many students spend Saturdays fretting over looming tests, an eco-friendly club at the school focuses on saving sea creatures.

The school’s Wild for Wildlife club, which advocates for animal rights, volunteered at the Aquarium of the Bay on Nov. 6 for Sea Turtle Saturday. The event was launched in support of the Sea Turtle Restoration project, a non-profit organization that works globally to save sea turtles, according to the Aquarium of the Bay’s Web site sea (www.aquariumofthebay.org). “We decided to participate to raise awareness and advocacy about helping sea turtles, which is one of the aims of our club,” club co-president senior Sylvan Guo said.

Wild for Wildlife member junior William Fried and co-presidents senior Ethel Bao and Guo volunteered, providing coloring projects and sea turtle tattoos to entertain children while adults participated in raffles, subscribed to newsletters, signed petitions to save sea turtles or simply donated to the cause. They also “helped set up the donations table, decorate the walls and set up the food,” Bao said. “The whole event was fun, and I’d probably go again if the organization comes back to San Francisco.”

Though the club is interested in the plight of all endangered species, they recently decided to focus on sea turtles, so last spring they organized an educational benefit. “We previously fundraised around $1,000 during Lowell Sea Turtle Week and donated $350 to the Sea Turtle Restoration project,” Guo said. The rest of the money they raised was donated to sea turtle hospitals and various other advocacy organizations.

Overall, the club does not plan to confine itself to sea turtles, and hopes to help many types of endangered species in the future. “We even discovered another environmental group that protects sharks,” Bao said. “Maybe we can shift our focus to sharks next year.”

Join the Wild for Wildlife club Fridays in Room 235 to defend the rights of these sea creatures, whether lovable or dangerous.

Astronomy Club

The bright minds of the astronomy club scoped the stars of the equally bright night sky.

Members of Astronomy Club camped out in Room S203 until 8 p.m. on Nov. 23 for a star-viewing party.

They trooped outside to observe the moon and constellations, using two of the school’s telescopes, as well as a telescope belonging to the club secretary and treasurer, junior Annika Min. “The goal of the star party was to give students a chance to use the telescopes to see the moon and perhaps galaxies of a nebula,” club co-sponsor and physics teacher Brian Cooley said. “In a telescope view you can see the shape of some of the galaxies, or look at a planet like Jupiter to see the details.”

Despite the cold, club members stayed warm with hot chocolate and indulged in cookies and apple juice while enjoying the rare opportunity to stargaze. “It went really well,” club vice-president junior Hannah Wong said. “We were able to go out to the soccer field and see Uranus, Jupiter and four of Jupiter’s moons.”

The club usually meets after school, making it difficult to observe stars and planets without the dark backdrop. “It’s pretty hard to conduct an astronomy club in the daytime, which is why we have to set up a separate meeting time for night meetings,” club president junior Tracy Lee said.

The club does not have such outings every week, so members usually spend meetings reading about the planets, learning how to use telescopes or completing small projects, such as when Lee brought in materials for members to make star maps. “I hope it gave the members a sense of how the sky rotates throughout the year and in one night,” Min said.

The meeting was originally scheduled for Nov. 26, which would have allowed members to catch sight of the Leonid meteor shower. The meeting was rescheduled because the weather forecast predicted rain.

Explore your out-of-this-world celestial curiosities on Thursdays in S203 with Astronomy Club.

This article first appeared in the Dec. 10, 2010 issue of The Lowell.