GRADE 3 PROGRAMS
Cardboard Rocket - This full dome immersive show takes your students on an imaginative journey through our solar system.
Earth’s Motions - Students participate in a hands-on lab to track the path of the Sun and Moon through two different seasons and predict which type of Earth motion causes the Sun to appear to move in the daytime sky. Both daily and seasonal changes will be demonstrated.
Star Mythology - Treat your students to a program about the myths of their favorite seasonal skies. Design your own program selecting one traditional culture’s group of myths: Native American, African, Ancient Greek/Roman, and Ancient Egyptian. These programs are great not just for science classes, but also language arts and history.
Force & Motion - Students build their own brick-flipper and learn about effort, load, and fulcra. Students experiment with adjusting the length of the effort arm to create different outcomes for the load.
Matter & Energy - This chemistry demo program helps students understand what matter is and what matter isn’t. Students participate in several hands-on experiments illustrating how and why energy states change.
GRADE 4 PROGRAMS
Our Star, the Sun - This full-dome program explains how stars like our Sun, shine and explains the various types of energy that leaves the Sun everyday. Solar weather is also introduced, including how the solar wind can affect processes here on Earth. Students will compare and contrast our Sun to three other types of stars that are visible in our night sky.
Our Night Sky - Throughout history, many people from nearly every culture in time have looked to the sky as part of their everyday lives. In particular, this program is full of exciting star stories told by the many Native American tribes that inhabited our continent.
Maps, Maps, Maps! - Students will learn about topo, aerial, and landsat maps and use them to identify various geologic formations and how they formed. Data will be recorded graphically so students will have a log of their findings and identify the processes that can change the Earth’s surface.
Two Small Pieces of Glass - While looking through the astronomer’s telescope, the students, along with the planetarium audience, explore the Galilean Moons, Saturn’s rings, and spiral structure of galaxies. During their conversation with the astronomer, they also learn about the discoveries of Galileo, Huygens, Newton, Hubble, and many others.
GRADE 5 PROGRAMS
Cycles & Patterns in the Solar System - This program covers distance, Solar System composition, orbital paths, and all objects in our Solar System. It also focuses on general information about the tools and technology that have helped improve our understanding of how our Solar System works.
Our Star: The Sun - This program features a full-dome program which covers the general facts about size, composition, age, and temperature of our Sun. Students will compare and contrast the Sun to other types of stars, specifically a red dwarf and a blue giant, by recording characteristics and noting differences. It also covers the latest technology being used to learn more about the Sun.
Motions of the Earth & Sun - This program explores the differences between revolution and rotation, and how they apply to the movement of the Earth and Sun. The Earth’s axis tilt, and how it affects experienced daylight and seasonal change, will also be covered as students track the direct rays of the Sun through the course of a day in each season.
Nine Planets & Counting - How many planets are there in our solar system? Nine, right? Or is it eight? Maybe it’s ten, or twelve, or more. Take a tour to explore the variety of objects that populate our solar system. Along the way, we’ll examine each planet individually and then step back to look at the big picture: rocky worlds compared to gas giants and more. And just what is a planet, anyway? The answer may surprise you.
Force & Motion - This Lego® Lab program deals with the motion of and how it can change as a result of difference applied forces. Students build a catapult model and experiment by changing projectile mass, recording the data, and then drawing conclusions. Class data will be represented graphically to determine science-based trends.
GRADE 6 PROGRAMS
Cell World - This program provides students with a hands-on, inquiry-based approach to learning about cells and their organelles. Differences between animal and plant cells and the varying processes within are also covered. Most exciting of all: students actually go inside the cell in a full-dome, immersive experience!
Create-A-Myth - Students learn about ancient myths then create their own myth while in the planetarium for a truly unique experience. Examples include those myths and constellations from Ancient Greece/Rome, Native American cultures, Ancient Egyptian, and African cultures. This a great program to overlap with language arts, English, and world history projects.
Energy Cars - This program illustrates the two broad categories of kinetic and potential energy. This lab provides a way for students to be engineers and designers through modeling how energy is stored and then released as thermal and electrical energy. Class results will be represented graphically so that science-based trends can be observed and recorded.
Nine Planets & Counting - How many planets are there in our solar system? Nine, right? Or is it eight? Maybe it’s ten, or twelve, or more. Take a tour to explore the variety of objects that populate our solar system. Along the way, we’ll examine each planet individually and then step back to look at the big picture: rocky worlds compared to gas giants and more. And just what is a planet, anyway? The answer may surprise you!
