1. Professional development for elementary teachers
LIPS 2018

2. The Situation RENTALS PER YEAR 2000-2012 3-5 2012-13 7
The STARLAB was purchased in 1990 as a resource for
providing remote school districts an enrichment
opportunity often only available to students in urban areas.
RENTALS PER YEAR
each
Efficiency of Time—
If a renter doesn’t know how to use the STARLAB (set-up, take-down, run the projector), they need to be trained.
From , two of those 3-5 renters always knew how to use the equipment so I was conducting 1-3 trainings/year.
Since 2012, I have been doing many, many more trainings each year.
Each training event takes about hours of my time NOT including the time it takes to arrange the rental, coordinate our schedules, and reserve a space on campus for the training.
I can end up doing this 1-3 times/month—incredibly inefficient!!!
Efficiency of Money—
My planetarium income is on a per event basis.
It was easy to get buy-in from the Administration because I had two arguments…

3. The Plan
Do a Teacher Workshop that teaches basic astronomy content, concepts, and activities and teaches them how to run the portable planetarium.

4. Goals Teach! Teach teachers
Increase Annual Rentals and Improve Efficiency
Teaching teachers
expands the reach of my own teaching and the potential of reaching a more diverse set of students than who visit the Whittenberger Planetarium.
Provides an opportunity to improve the education of children.
Teaching multiple teachers at once will reduce expenses.
So, all this justification allowed my application for writing a grant to be approved by the college administration
And convince the Idaho Space Grant Consortium to approve my grant application so on to the workshop itself.

5. Idaho Space Grant Consortium Informal Education Grant
$5000 grant with a $5000 match covered:
Time to develop and lead the workshop
Expenses and Consumables
Travel Reimbursement for Participants
Administrative Support
Advertising

6. Target Audience and Who Attended
Target: Elementary School Teachers
Nine Attendees came from Eight Schools or Libraries :
Five K-12 faculty/staff
One 8-12 volunteer
Three librarians (one attended Day 1 only)

7. Curriculum Design (State Science Standards for Elementary Grades)
“The four seasons occur in a specific order due to their weather patterns.” (ESS1-K-1)
Current Events/Teachable Moments (Solar Eclipse)
What I Was Inspired to Teach
“The four seasons occur in a specific order due to their weather patterns.”

8. The Workshop -Day One Activity/Lesson STARLAB Visit #1 Lunch
Kinesthetic Astronomy – Meaning of Day & Night
STARLAB Visit #1
Set-up, Constellations, Daily Motion facing South
Lunch
Kinesthetic Astronomy – Meaning of Year
Whittenberger Planetarium
Solstice/Equinox, Constellations, Seasonal Constellations
The Workshop -Day One

9. An Aside— Kinesthetic Astronomy
By Cheryl Morrow and Michael Zawaski at Space Science Institute (?).

10. The Workshop -Day Two STARLAB Visit #2 – Navigation
Polaris, Circumpolar Motion, Storytelling, Introduce other Cylinders
Individual Time to Work on Lessons/Activities
Lunch
Activity/Lesson
Moon: Size & Distance Scale, Phases, Eclipses
Whittenberger Planetarium
Phases of the Moon
STARLAB Visit #3 – Set-up and Attendee Lessons
The Workshop -Day Two

11. The Workshop -Day Three
Activity/Lesson
Solar System Models, What Happened to Pluto
STARLAB Visit #4 – Set-up and Attendee Lessons
Lunch
Wrap-up/Final Thoughts

12. Impact Seven of the Eight sites rented the STARLAB the following year.
Five public schools
Three libraries
Audiences ranged in size from approximately 98 to 600.
Total reach was approximately 1,915 people.
Longer term impact – three of the sites have rented the STARLAB each year since the workshop.

13. Participant Feedback: What Worked
Enrollment of 8, could make 12 work
Kinesthetic Activities
Set-up & Take-down in groups of 2-3 perfect
Moon Activity!
Catered Lunches.
3 days of repetition in the planetariums

15. Participant Feedback: Future Workshops
Role play a program for elementary students
Fewer constellations for better mastery
Add Star Finder & Star Clocks to activities
Add an intermediate workshop

16. What’s Happened 2015-16 14 2016-17 19 (8 trainings) RENTALS PER YEAR
each
(8 trainings)
Efficiency of Time—
If a renter doesn’t know how to use the STARLAB (set-up, take-down, run the projector), they need to be trained.
From , two of those 3-5 renters always knew how to use the equipment so I was conducting 1-3 trainings/year.
Since 2012, I have been doing many, many more trainings each year.
Each training event takes about hours of my time NOT including the time it takes to arrange the rental, coordinate our schedules, and reserve a space on campus for the training.
I can end up doing this 1-3 times/month—incredibly inefficient!!!
Efficiency of Money—
My planetarium income is on a per event basis.
It was easy to get buy-in from the Administration because I had two arguments…

17. Round Table Other workshop structures? Records of ‘graduates’.
GRANTING AGENCIES?