ELEMENTARY
COMPASS, CALENDAR, CLOCK
Grades 4 to adult
As our ancients learned, the sky is not just a thing of beauty… it’s the ruler for the position of our planet. Understanding how our planet is aligned with the distance stars allows anyone to use the sky as a compass, a calendar and a clock. Come learn how to use the sky yourself!
BACK TO THE MOON
Grades 4 to adult
Watch video
Return to the Moon 40 years after the historic Apollo landings. See how the Google Lunar X Prize competition among privately funded international teams is ushering in a new era of lunar exploration. Narrated by Tim Allen.
WILBEAR’S ADVENTURE
Grades Pre-K to 1
Video trailer
Wilbear is a teddy bear who wants to fly! Children’s imaginations soar with Wilbear as he learns about flight, from early gliders and the historic Wright Brothers, to his own first flight in a real airplane. Learn about recent space missions to the Sun, the Moon, and Mars!
DOWN TO EARTH
Grades Pre-K to 3
Video trailer
While on a fossil-hunting expedition, the Zula Patrol turns up evidence that a villain has been traveling back in time to Earth’s prehistoric past to illegally dump trash. The Zula Patrollers must find and catch her, before her actions cause catastrophic consequences! In the process, our heroes learn all about the formation and development of Earth, and the life forms who call it home. Based on the PBS television show Zula Patrol. Additional live presentation targets academic content standards.
INTO THE NIGHT
Grades Pre-K to 5
Experience the night sky in the middle of the day! Explore the stars and the constellations, and discover the stories behind them in an interactive play. Discover the reasons for a fixed North Star and an ever changing Moon.
PERFECT LITTLE PLANET
Grades Pre-K to 5
Video trailer
Imagine you could take the ultimate space vacation—where would you go to find that ideal place? In “Perfect Little Planet,” a family from another star system is doing just that as they travel through our solar system. Join them and see the solar system from a distinctly different point of view. Soar over the surface of Pluto, our best known Dwarf Planet. Dive down the ice cliffs of Uranus’ moon Miranda at breath-taking speeds. Sail through the beautiful rings of Saturn and dare the ferocious lightning storms at Jupiter.
FIELD TRIP TO THE MOON
Grades 1 to 5
Take your class on a virtual trip to our closest neighbor in space with the Field Trip to the Moon. Feel the ground shake beneath you as you experience a thrilling NASA rocket launch, and orbit the Earth to get an astronaut’s view of a sunrise in space. Field Trip to the Moon is a virtual journey created using NASA engineering models and scientific data. Like NASA’s astronauts, you will come face-to-face with the challenges and excitement of traveling through space to land on the Moon. Along the way, you’ll discover the reasons for the phases of the moon, visit other moons in our solar system, and learn about recent NASA missions to the moon.
JOURNEY TO THE PLANETS
Grades 1 to 5
Travel through space to the planets for an in-depth look at what it would be like to live on each planet. Explore the surface of our nearest neighbor, the Moon, watch the changing phases of the Moon and discover the science behind this phenomenon. Learn the reasons for the seasons, important facts about the orbits of planets, and the search for planets beyond our solar system!
FRACTALS
Grades 2 and older
Journey into the infinitely complex world of fractals – endlessly repeating patterns made from simple algebraic equations! Fractals exist in our natural world and inside our bodies, and can be created by children as well as computers. Each fractal tells the story of the processes that created it — whether the erosion of a canyon, the evolution of a galaxy, or the computation of an equation. Fractals is a spectacular, award-winning planetarium show that takes viewers on a tour of the fractals in nature and zooms through infinitely complex mathematical fractals. Featuring original music, the show is both educational and highly entertaining.
BAD ASTRONOMY
Grades 3 and older
Video trailer
Were the Apollo visits to the moon actually a hoax? Have aliens landed on Earth? Can you tell your future by the stars? Prepare to debunk and tackle pseudoscience head-on with Bad Astronomy: Myths and Misconceptions. Based on the popular book and website of the same name, Bad Astronomy offers a unique and fun approach to learning about the cosmos. Join the “Bad Astronomer” Phil Plait as he takes a critical look at popular myths and misconceptions to show audiences how science can be used to evaluate questionable claims.
DAWN OF THE SPACE AGE
Grades 4 to 12
Video trailer
Re-live the excitement of the early days of space exploration, from the launch of the first artificial satellite sputnik, to the magnificent lunar landings and privately operated space flights.
OASIS IN SPACE
Grades 4 to 12
Video trailer
Set off on a journey through the Solar System in search of water, the key to life on Earth. Learn about current space missions searching for traces of life and the hunt for extrasolar planets.
SUPERVOLCANOES
Grades 4 to 12
Video trailer
Feel the Heat! Supervolcanoes explores rare types of volcanic eruptions that marshal the energy that lurks, like a sleeping dragon, beneath the surface of planet Earth. The story of these big blow outs is a tale of havoc and mayhem: mass extinctions, climate collapses, and violence beyond anything humans have ever witnessed. In this unique immersive experience, audiences will explore the impact of volcanism on Earth and other worlds in our solar system. Can a supervolcano erupt in our own time? The answer is surprisingly close to home.
BIG
Grades 5 to 12
Video trailer
How big is the Universe? BIG looks at how we have started to explore the Universe beginning with space probes reaching out to our own Sun and the rest of the Solar System. Visit nebulae, globular clusters, galaxies and black holes as we travel as far as telescopes can see.
ORIGINS OF LIFE
Grades 5 to 12
Video trailer
Starting with the Big Bang, the show deals with the pre-biotic chemistry in the Universe, the formation of stars, solar systems and the first life on Earth. Furthermore, Origins of Life covers the great extinctions and our search for life beyond planet Earth. Origins of Life is an inspirational journey through time and a celebration of life on Earth. It features many recent discoveries related to life science, demonstrating that if there was ever a time that science made its greatest advances, it’s right now!
TWO SMALL PIECES OF GLASS
Grades 6 to 12
Video trailer
Telescopes help us understand our place in space and telescopes continue to expand our understanding of the Universe. Discover the history of the telescope — an instrument with two small pieces of glass — and the discoveries these wonderful tools have made. See how telescopes work and how the largest observatories in the world use these instruments to explore the mysteries of the universe. While looking through an astronomer’s telescope, you will explore the Galilean Moons, Saturn’s rings, and spiral structure of galaxies and learn about the discoveries of Galileo, Huygens, Newton, Hubble and many others. You’ll be transported to some of the largest observatories in the world, as well as learn about recent NASA missions including the Hubble Space Telescope.
SOLAR SUPERSTORMS
Video trailer
Won the audience award at the 2016 International Planetarium Society meeting. One of the most intensive efforts ever made to visualize the inner workings of the sun, Solar Superstorms takes viewers into the tangle of magnetic fields and superhot plasma that vent the Sun’s energy in dramatic flares, violent solar tornadoes, and the largest eruptions in the solar system. What drives the Sun, and how do its storms affect planet Earth? Find the answers as we venture into the seething interior of our star.
