Calgary earth scientist beams astronomy lessons to students in Ukraine

Every other Monday at 9 a.m., Don Hladiuk joins a Zoom call with a group of 30 to 45 students. They are eager to learn about space and astronomy, which Hladiuk is more than willing to talk about.

He’ll share lessons on specific constellations, celestial events to watch for or topics the students have requested to learn more about. The session ends with an interactive multiple choice quiz, after which Hladiuk opens the floor for students to discuss whatever is on their minds.

“That's my favourite part of the morning is to just hear about their day, what's happening in their lives,” he said.

For an hour, it doesn’t matter that many of the students don’t speak English fluently, or that they are scattered across various conflict zones in Ukraine. For a short time, the students get to just be students.

Since July, Hladiuk has volunteered with Vchysia — or Learn and teach UA — a non-governmental organization providing education and support for students and teachers who are either in or have been forced out of Ukraine since the war began in 2022.

Hladiuk — an earth scientist by profession, as well as the Calgary Eyeopener’s starman for the last four decades — said both sets of his grandparents were from Ukraine, and he was looking for a way to support the war effort from Canada.

When retired teacher and friend Julia Wowkadow mentioned she had been volunteering with Vchysia — giving online English lessons by reading the Harry Potter series — Hladiuk was eager to get involved.

“I thought this would be an opportunity to share my love of the night sky and try to give these students some normalcy because many of them that join me have no power, no heat … they're in bomb shelters being attacked,” Hladiuk said.

Both Hladiuk and Wowkadow volunteer with Vchysia’s Ukraine Speaks English program, which provides free English lessons through conversation clubs on a variety of topics. Each class involves a moderator to help with any translation between the students and teacher.

Like Hladiuk, Wowkadow said she has developed deep connections with the students in her classes, and becomes concerned when they are unable to join because of the danger around them.

“I don't know what I would do if something happened to any of these kids,” Wowkadow said.

Despite that fear, however, Wowkadow said being an extra support system for the students is what fuels her and the other volunteer teachers.

“The common thread with the volunteers is that it's the high point of their week doing this activity and they get a lot of enjoyment and emotional affirmation,” she said.

Filling gaps in learning

Vchysia has been operating in its current form since 2024. Before that, it worked with Smart Osvita — an NGO focused on training and supporting teachers — before shifting its focus towards students when the war began.

Olena Zhupanova, a project manager with Vchysia, said the English program currently has 35 volunteer teachers from various countries, providing 12 to 16 lessons per week.

“It's one of the biggest educational volunteer projects in Ukraine right now,” she said.

Zhupanova, who lives in Kyiv, said she joined the organization six months after the conflict began. Before the war, she worked in a bookstore and as a children’s book author.

“I loved my work, I loved my life, but then one day everything changed and I had to leave Ukraine for five months,” she said.

After living as a refugee with her two kids in Sweden, Zhupanova returned to Ukraine to be with her husband, who had joined the Ukrainian military. Although she could not fight herself, Zhupanova said she still wanted to find a way to contribute.

“We cannot stop the war,” she said. “But still, I can help my country somehow, and so this is the way.”

The organization’s main goal, Zhupanova said, is to fill the educational gaps the war has created through its various educational programs.

“Ukrainian students have significant educational losses due to air raid alerts, air strikes, displacement, power cuts, and educational NGOs like ours try to help them to overcome these losses,” she said.

She added Hladiuk and Wowkadow have been great additions to their volunteer team, especially as their courses provide an opportunity for students to dive deeper into topics that are not always covered in the mainstream curriculum.

“Our aim is to not only teach them English, but also provide them an opportunity to learn something new, something exciting, [and] to connect with the person on the other side of the planet,” Zhupanova said.

A replicable model

Beyond supporting students and teachers in Ukraine, the work of Vchysia and Smart Osvita has also inspired a similar Canadian-led effort to help students in other countries devastated by war.

Teacher David Falconer started Classrooms Without Walls after volunteering with Vchysia and Smart Osvita in 2022. After working with them to develop a pool of volunteers, a colleague asked Falconer to help implement the same approach in Myanmar, which has been facing the fallout of a coup since 2021.

“I thought, ‘Okay there's something here that I had not considered before,’ which is we need to start an organization,” said Falconer, who is based in Cochrane, Alta.

The organization has since expanded to offer free online lessons to students in Afghanistan, primarily women and girls who are prevented from accessing education.

Classrooms Without Walls partnered with Vchysia through its Teachers For Ukraine initiative, helping to connect volunteers with programs like Ukraine Speaks English.

Last year, the program helped Vchysia deliver classes to approximately 35,000 students, with 25 volunteer teachers providing lessons.

Falconer said they also hold sessions for parents to provide feedback on the programs and what they would like to see in the classes. Their comments, he said, often focus less on content and more on how the students feel.

“As one Ukrainian parent has said … ‘It's like an island of normal life,’” Falconer said, adding a student once told him the programming “reminds us that humanity still exists.”

“I stress with all our volunteers, that's all we need — to create an island of normal life so that kids can continue to dream.”

Hladiuk carries this message into every lesson, adding the night sky has become a point of connection for him and the students.

“The beautiful thing is Ukraine, and Kyiv in particular, is at the same latitude as Calgary, about 51° N latitude,” Hladiuk said. “So what I see in the night sky is pretty much what they see in the night sky.”

"It's special to give them something that is distracting from the war and the horror that they shouldn't be experiencing."