Minnesota Planetarium Society

In 2006 the Society launched the ExploraDome school outreach program. This is the first portable dome running Uniview, the data-scaling software developed at the Hayden Planetarium in New York City. The ExploraDome, with the same technical capabilities of large fixed facilities, has allowed the Society to test and refine teaching strategies with school groups – a task that would be difficult to execute in larger fixed facilities. In the past four years the ExploraDome has reached over 100,000 students and other learners. The flexibility and vast amount of data accessible to our digital dome environment allows the Society educators to quickly respond to the STEM needs of individual classrooms. Teachers may be working on specific standards, e.g., understanding the scale of the solar system or learning about monitoring climate change from space. They might be focusing on cultural connections, exploring the mythologies behind the constellations or the patterns of eclipses, or the wandering of the planets amongst the fixed stars. Or they might be simply interested in getting the students excited, letting them interactively direct the journey to the edge of the observable universe. The possibilities are nearly endless.Two unique features of Uniview are data-streaming and unicasting. Data-streaming facilitates the projection of satellite data over the Internet into the dome, wrapped onto virtual planets. Unicasting allows remote operators to dynamically control and deliver programs to multiple domes simultaneously through the Internet, and participants can transfer control between one another. Each local audience sees and hears the same synchronized data. In 2009, this aspect was on display on the front lawn of the White House, when the Society facilitated a dome-cast to Minnesota children during the first ever White House Star Party. In conjunction with the ExploraDome outreach programming, the Society demonstrated this system in academic planetariums around the region by utilizing the complete computer-driven full-dome video projection system. From these first “house calls,” the Society has helped institutions justify the investment to permanently upgrade their facilities and has negotiated a regional software license agreement. What has emerged is the current Network of 8 interoperable planetariums – among them the first school based planetariums in the world to run Uniview. This network has created regional STEM Centers of Excellence, inspiring children and supporting teachers.