Today we went to the Arecibo Observatory, the largest radiotelescope on earth! The radiotelescope was built by Cornell University in Puerto Rico because of its ties to US, its proximity to the equator, and natural crater the right size for the dish they were building to be used to gather the radio signals from space. The observatory was built and owned by Cornell University, but in recent years it now belongs to the National Science Foundation, Ana G. Mendez University System-Metropolitan University, and the Universities Space Research Association.
I found the telescope really impressive and a lot bigger than I imagined. I think it is great that the people of Puerto Rico now have a claim on this monument since, after all it is their space. Our guide from the tour said the Observatory has around 100,000 visitors a year and around 30% of those are school children. I thought it was really cool how the visitor center inside was very much set up for educational purposes, offering hands on exhibits and a lot of good information for both tourists and children. Included in this was a mini model of the radiotelescope that could would be controlled by a lever to understand how it rotates and collects its data.
The visitor center had, in my opinion, the same atmosphere that the Science Museum in St. Paul has in terms of set-up and information being displayed. However when we went on school field trips their as kids, we could not walk outside and see the real thing we were learning about first hand. Bringing school aged children to the observatory seems like such a great opportunity to see what is going on in their own space and to learn about this scientific advancement at the same time. The tour guide seemed to take a lot of pride in the fact that the observatory is now part owned by a University in Puerto Rico and talked about initiatives to get children interested in science and engineering to better society in the future for Puerto Rico. I think this pride is very warranted, as they really do have something great here in Puerto Rico that nowhere else in the world does. In our time in Puerto Rico we have talked about the school systems and how many public schools are not comparably in quality to that of the US. Bringing children to the observatory has the potential to motivate these them to continue working hard in school and shoot for their dreams.