Gravity Discovery Centre 

On 17 November, all IEC students and four teachers went to the Gravity Discovery Center in Gingin.

We had been learning about the solar system in Science so we went to see some planets using telescopes and to learn about them more.

First, as soon as we got there, we separated into two groups which were led by the tour leaders Bec and Jonathan. Then Jonathan took our group to the Leaning Tower to experiment with gravity. I found the tower great. It has 222 steps and it is 45 meters tall. We climbed up all 222 steps and threw water balloons filled with different volumes of water from above to see which one would hit the ground first. Three people dropped at the same time and as a result, they hit the ground at the same time.

Then, we went on the ‘Solar System Walk’ which was an enjoyable and educational place. The Solar System walk begins from the sun and ends with Pluto, although Pluto is called a ‘dwarf planet’ which means that it is not counted as a planet nowadays. Jonathan gave information to us about every planet.

After that, we had our lunch and went around to have a look in the museum by ourselves. We have seen many strange and amazing things such as the Mundrabilla Meteorite which fell down from space and has a mass of 300kg. We also read many posters about historical events like the largest and smallest sharks on Earth.

Furthermore, in the afternoon we went to the observatory section to look at it the sun via a special sun telescope. The sun’s surface was amazing! I could see a solar prominence which extended out from the sun about four times the diameter of Earth.

Next, a few of our classmates came back to the school and the rest of us slept overnight to see the planets through telescopes in the night sky. At night, another tour guide called Mitch led us to the observatory section and helped us to look at the Moon, Jupiter, Saturn and Mercury.

Seeing stars sparkling, the brightness of the moon, the rings of Saturn and looking up at the universe was an amazing feeling. It has been one of my dreams to be able to see the planets with a telescope and it finally came true! I recommend every student to visit this awesome place.

- article by Gulafroz, IEC student