STARLAB Portable Planetarium — Workshop & Convention Calendar

Digital STARLAB Institute — July 14-15, 2008, Malone University, Canton, Ohio

Join us for two days of hands-on Digital STARLAB training using reknowned Starry Night® software. Starry Night’s own content director, Pedro Braganca, will focus on software manipulation for presentation in the Digital STARLAB dome. The Institute will also feature presentations and idea sharing from other Digital STARLAB users.

The Digital STARLAB/Starry Night Institute will offer:

Professional development credit through Malone University for those interested
Practice, instruction and training for current users, science teachers and educators, Cosmic Lesson Teachers/Team Leaders

The Digital STARLAB/Starry Night Institute is sponsored by Learning Technologies, Inc. Additional details will be forthcoming. Please contact rvarian@starlab.com to learn more!

College of the Atlantic STARLAB Workshop — July 27-August 1, 2008, Bar Harbor, Maine

The College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, Maine, offers accredited two and four graduate credit summer residential courses for teachers in a variety of subjects, including astronomy. The College is set on the shores of Frenchman Bay and offers close access to the beauty of Acadia National Park and the many attractions of Mt. Desert Island. Room and board are available at the College.

Teaching with a Portable Planetarium (July 27-August 2) is a two graduate credit course that provides instruction in setting up, taking down, and maintaining a portable planetarium, and includes the development of instructional programs. It is suitable for teachers as well the staff of science centers and science museums who feature a portable planetarium.

Further information may be obtained by clicking here or contact Jean Sylvia, Associate Director of Summer Programs, at jsylvia@coa.edu or 800-597-9500.

New Jersey Astronomy Center at Raritan Valley Community College — STARLAB Training for New Jersey Teachers

STARLAB is a portable planetarium made of fabric, which is inflated by a fan and capable of accommodating up to 35 students. A star projector recreates the sky, including the Sun, Moon and Planet positions on the dome, for any time or place on earth. STARLAB is compact enough to fit into a small car and is easily set up in 15 minutes. It requires a clean floor space of 20' x 22' and a 12' ceiling. During the training, participants will learn how to set up, maintain and repack the system.

The STARLAB Training Workshops are designed to help teachers make science and astronomy exciting for their students. STARLAB can help teacher's work toward meeting the NJ State Science Standards by having students "do" hands-on science and not just read about it. Abstract ideas such as the Earth's daily and annual motions, moon phases, constellations and the reason for the seasons are easily presented in STARLAB. School administrators and supervisors are encouraged to enroll in the workshop. The cost of the two-day workshop is $200 per person. Two or more teachers from the same school are $175 each. Teachers needing a STARLAB refresher may sign up for Day 2 of the workshop, for a cost of $100 per person. The two-day workshop is from 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. each day and includes curriculum materials for grades K-12, mythological materials, STARLAB certification, materials from both NASA and the Hubble Space Telescope Institute and lunch. Teachers receive 12 PDU hours for this workshop.

There are two remaining scheduled STARLAB Trainings in 2008:

Tuesday & Wednesday, July 8-9, 2008
Tuesday & Wednesday, August 19-20, 2008

School Districts with 5-10 teachers who wish to be certified may be interested in a customized workshop that meets your districts specific needs. Call to discuss dates and curriculum.

Questions should be addressed to:

Theresa Moody

Phone (908) 526-1200 x 8942

Fax (908) 526-7938

E-mail: tmoody@raritanval.edu

A Week in Italy with an American Planetarium Operator

Each year, at the end of October, Serafino Zani Astronomical Observatory (Lumezzane/Brescia) in collaboration with the IPS Mobile Planetarium Committee and with the support of Learning Technologies, Inc., hosts an American Planetarium Operator who presents lessons with the itinerant planetarium STARLAB to high school students of English. Transportation from the United States will be provided, along with bed and meals from Tuesday to Sunday (lunch and dinner Saturday and Sunday, on your own).

The program for the week is as follows:

From Tuesday to Friday: STARLAB lessons in a secondary school.

There will be no more than four every morning for a total of four each day. Each lesson will be at least 60 minutes in length and can be about traditional topics for planetaria such as: daily motion, orienteering, latitude motion, solstice and equinox, constellations, mythology and so on. Or, the non-astronomical STARLAB cylinders can be utilized for a lesson about such topics as: biology, tectonics, geography, ocean currents and meteorology. The final part of the lesson could be dedicated to the Native American mythology by using the related STARLAB cylinder (or other ancient mythologies such as Chinese or African).

The morning astronomical lessons may be in Brescia or another nearby city. All lessons and presentations will be conducted in the American language. A preliminary text of the lesson is required so that teachers will have ample time to work with their students before the STARLAB experience. Be prepared to teach the lesson at either a basic or an advanced level. Some classes are extremely interested but do not know a lot of astronomy and others have studied astronomy in depth. Most of the students have had two to four years of English and will understand the spoken word if you speak clearly and deliberately. They have a good sense of humor and certainly display the usual excitement about STARLAB.

During the afternoons there are no other engagements, providing an opportunity for touring the locale and nearby cities. Lumezzane is very rich in the public astronomy field with the Serafino Zani Astronomical Observatory, four small planetaria, the Eureka Astronomical Center and the National Archive of Planetaria. Brescia province is very interesting for its natural landscapes and parks, three lakes and the most important valley for prehistoric age stone engravings. Important artistic cities, such as Verona and Venice, are nearby and can be reached by taking a one or two hour train ride.

Thursday afternoon: Eureka Astronomical Center, Annual workshop for teachers and planetarium operators. This workshop is advertised at national level. The presenter will demonstrate the versatility of the STARLAB planetarium and all the cylinders. We encourage you to also share any other experiences you have had while teaching astronomy to students. The workshop participants are people who are interested in learning how to make exciting and effective presentations using STARLAB.

Friday evening: A presentation of Native American (or other cultures such as African or Chinese) mythology and constellations for the general public. The presenter will provide an introduction with slides about U.S. experiences in the diffusion of astronomy and then a presentation with STARLAB.

Saturday-Sunday: Free time for touring Venice, other cities and/or other Italian planetaria

Culminating documentation: We request a final report be written by the American teacher which will include the text of the High School lesson, comments from the students and impressions of the experience.

Winners of the "Week in Italy" for an American planetarium operator (since 1995):

Susan Reynolds Button (OCM Boces Planetarium, Syracuse, New York); Jeanne E. Bishop (Westlake School Planetarium, Ohio); Jerry Vinski (Planetarium of the Raritan Valley Community College, New Jersey); Dee Wanger (Discovery Center Science Museum, Fort Collins, Colorado); April Whitt (Fernbank Science Center, Atlanta, Georgia); Raymond Shubinski (East Kentucky Center for Science, Mathematics & Technology); Andrea Lee Pisacano (Kauai Children's Discovery Museum, Hawaii); Dayle Brown (Pegasus Production, Indiana, USA); John T. Meader (Northern Stars Planetarium, Fairfield, Maine); Corey Radman (Discovery Center Science Museum, Fort Collins, Colorado). The 2006 winner was Carolyn R. Kaichi, Bishop Museum, Honolulu, Hawaii.

The STARLAB workshop & convention calendar . . .