Ideas for Planetarium

After Building the Disk

• Mission 1: Find North. Let them stare at the projected sky and use their star wheels. Can they locate Polaris? How would Polaris help a traveller? Why does it appear to stay almost still while other stars move around it?
• Mission 2: What Time of Year Is It? Give them a mystery date or season. They use their star wheel and visible constellations to argue which season the sky represents. They have to give actual evidence, not just guess.
• Mission 3: Turn the Earth. Start the Homestar rotation. Don’t say “the stars are moving.” Ask: “What could cause what you are seeing?” Eventually get them back to Earth’s rotation. The apparent sky moves because we are moving. The Homestar’s rotating starfield is especially useful here. 
• Mission 4: Become an Ancient Traveller. Give each team a scenario: You are travelling north, you are crossing an ocean, you need to know when winter is approaching, you need to know when to plant, etc. Their job is to identify something in the sky that might help.

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• Mission 5: Something Changed. Quietly switch discs. 😈 If one of your eight discs shows a planet, Moon, nebula, different constellation treatment, or another object, ask: “Something in our sky has changed. What is it? Is it really part of the star pattern?”
• Mission 6: The Wanderers. Connect back to Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Why were planets so strange to ancient observers? Stars largely preserve their patterns relative to one another, while planets shift position against the background stars.
• Mission 7: SHOOTING STAR. Turn on the meteor function without warning. Whoever notices it first has to identify whether it was actually a star. This gives you the meteor / meteorite distinction almost for free.