Grades K-2 Field Experience Options

Single Field Experience: $7/student

Two field experiences: $14/student:

Spend the day on campus! Schedule a morning 1.5 hour experience, break for a brown bag lunch in the planetarium lobby or outside courtyard, and come back into the planetarium dome for a second 1.5 hour experience.

While you're at UofL, take your students on a self-guided tour of campus.

Note: Each field experience ends with star tour, highlighting the constellations visible in the current night sky.

Patterns in the Sky (1.5 hours)

From making sense of the patterns affecting our world to navigating featureless deserts and seas, the night sky has been a source of inspiration, information and navigation since the beginning of time. Young explorers take an immersive visual journey through space and time to learn how our ancestors pieced together patterns, enabling them to measure time, create calendars and understand moon phases. The wonder of the intricate dance of the Sun, Earth and Moon comes to life on the dome as our virtual journey illustrates day/night, moon phases, and other celestial patterns. Young learners intuitively grasp difficult-to-understand concepts in this journey of discovery. This exploration includes the show Perfect Little Planet, which features an alien cartoon family touring our solar system for the perfect vacation spot, encountering unique and interesting elements of our solar system along the way. The experience concludes with a short tour of the constellations in the night sky as we turn our imaginations outward. NGSS Disciplinary Core Ideas: ESS1.A, ESS1.B, PS3.B,  PA4.B

Note: We recommend that the class complete a full month of moon observation prior to coming to the planetarium for this educational experience. Click here for a web-based moon-phase observation chart that can be printed.

 

Wild and Wonderful Weather (1.5 hours)

Weather is everywhere on Earth, all the time. Your students join us as we fly around a looming Earth in a virtual spaceship – exploring weather in different parts of the US and the world. The engaging experience immerses students in ideas such as the forces and elements that cause Earth’s dynamic weather – the heating of the Sun, the winds that result, and interactions with water. And then as our virtual spaceship leaves Earth behind, we fly to the Moon to compare the lack of weather there due to no atmosphere and no liquid water. Then flying to Mars where we find a thin atmosphere that sometimes carries huge red dust devils due to unequal heating from the Sun, but no liquid water and so a very limited range of different types of weather. This exploration is followed by the show *Perfect Little Planet, which features an alien cartoon family touring our solar system for the perfect vacation spot, encountering unique and interesting elements of our solar system along the way. The experience concludes with a short tour of the constellations in the night sky as we turn our imaginations outward. NGSS Disciplinary Core Ideas: ESS1.B, ESS2.A, ESS2.C, ESS2.D, ESS3.B, PS3.B

*Note: If you schedule a group to see both K-2 field experiences on the same day, a different planetarium show will be seen during Wild and Wonderful Weather.

Show-Only Option

Also available for elementary schools is a traditional planetarium show followed by a star talk: 1 hour/$5 per student.

Next Generation Science Standards 3-Dimensional Alignment

Each field experience program for school groups targets select Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS). The programs are aligned with elements of all 3 dimensions of NGSS: disciplinary core ideas, science and engineering practices, and crosscutting concepts. The visually rich and engaging experiences supplement your classroom instruction to offer students additional opportunities to consider both science practices as well as relevant larger crosscutting concepts in connection with the core science ideas. Click “NGSS Alignment” below for details.

NGSS Alignment