Nasa asks PE principal to help out

WHILE a hobby in astronomy is rare, a passion in the field is truly unique and has led to recently retired Merryvale deputy principal Louw Ferreira being approached by Nasa to photograph asteroids above his Charlo home.

Having retired in April after 40 years of teaching, Ferreira will now divert his attention to the world of astronomy.

Nasa has approached him to take photographs of the sky above his home to see if there are any asteroids, using a software programme called Astrometrica.

Ferreira, 65, describes himself as a nearastronomer. He said had he been born in a different era, he would definitely have explored radio astronomy.

However, he is grateful he ended up in teaching as his drive for educating children paved the way to his assiduous teaching career.

Having joined Merryvale in 1996, Louw said his love for helping special needs children developed as a result of his childhood best friend being put in a remedial class during his primary school days.

This led to him identifying the gap between pupils who could cope in mainstream classes and those who could not, and he wanted to change that.

“Throughout my teaching career the greatest lesson I learnt was that special children can learn too, but it may take a little more effort for them,” he said.

“In the forty years I spent teaching, I could have been a maths or science teacher but my passion for special children surpassed that dream. Now that I am on retirement, I am diverting my attention to the world of astronomy.

“Over the years, with help from my learners, we have built radios and sometimes I even taught pupils about astronomy, the sun the stars and the sky. Most recently I had a dialogue with 30 pupils from Cape Recife about astronomy.”

Merryvale School is featured in a Nasa journal for a radio astronomy project that Ferreira initiated. He said he wanted to encourage the youth to follow careers in astronomy.