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Seeing stars

Warren students explore space in a portable planetarium

By Chris McBride 2 min read
Staff photo / R. Michael Semple Fifth-grade students from Warren McGuffey PK-8 School enter the 15-foot high mobile Sky Dome Planetarium set up in the new Warren City Schools Recreation and Wellness Center Monday morning. The students learned about planets, solar systems, constellations, black holes and other space-related topics during the 45-minute session. Fifth-graders from each of the district’s four PK-8 schools got an opportunity to visit the mobile planetarium during the day.

WARREN -- Fifth-grade students across Warren City Schools experienced a unique, immersive lesson in astronomy Monday by stepping into a portable planetarium at the new WCS Recreation and Wellness Center on the Warren G. Harding High School campus.

The event, organized in partnership with Mobile Ed Productions, brought groups of students into the inflatable SkyDome Planetarium for 45-minute sessions on stars, planets and constellations.

"This is our first large-scale field trip at the center,” said Nina Elias, administrator of the Student Recreation and Wellness Center. "We're hosting all fifth graders across our district's four PK-8 buildings. They're learning visually, a bit more hands-on, about constellations, stars, and planets, material that directly ties into their recent curriculum."

Inside the darkened SkyDome, students sat around the dome, taking in projected images of the night sky.

"They're seeing the stars and constellations as they look today, making it a vivid extension of what they've seen in textbooks and videos," Elias said. "It's so much more clear, and they're getting a unique, hands-on experience."

The day was carefully coordinated, with staggered bus schedules bringing students from each school.

"The planetarium fits up to 90 students at a time, so while one group is inside, another is arriving or departing, making it seamless,” said Elias. “By the end of the day, all our fifth graders will have had this shared experience.”

Anna Marie Buonavolonta, a fifth-grade math and science teacher at McGuffey, underscored the importance of this connection between classwork and real-life application.

“For the first nine weeks, we've been studying Earth and space, including patterns in constellations and planetary movements,” Buonavolonta said. “This experience lets students make real-life connections to what we cover in class."

She emphasized the impact of such interactive learning, saying, "This experience is incredibly important. Many students won't encounter a planetarium until college. Seeing these constellations, rather than just reading or watching videos, brings science to life and helps them connect classroom concepts to the real world."

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