Seminar Archive

• 2024 Sep 27 at 2pm PDT (21:00 UT). Planetarians' Zoom Party. Bring your own beverage. Meet up with other planetarians to discuss any weighty matters (e.g. establishing regular regional-virtual meetings as well as in-person regional meetings) or interesting questions that have been on our minds. Share "the best of" your experiences at recent planetarium conferences. Or just "shoot the breeze"--talk about anything that comes to mind. This was a party, so no video or chat to be posted.

• 2024 Aug 30. Celebrating Alan Friedman's Legacy - Audience Participation and More. Alan Friedman was a pioneer in developing and nurturing techniques for audience participation in the planetarium world. This seminar honors his legacy by looking at his career, his accomplishments, the people he mentored, and the audience participation strategies he promoted. To honor his philosophy that a planetarium audience is best served by actively involving them in their own planetarium learning, there was audience participation in this seminar. Positions Alan held included Founding Director of The Lawrence Hall of Science Planetarium (then called the William K. Holt Planetarium), IPS President, and Founding Director of the New York Hall of Science.  He was also a pioneer in using literature and other areas of the humanities for science teaching.  Attendees included those who knew Alan well and those who may only suspect that they have benefited from his work. Watch the video. Read the chat.

• 2024 Jun 28. Planetarium Climate Roundtable. This seminar brings together media producers and educators from organizations like NOAA (e.g. Science on a Sphere) and NASA (e.g. Scientific Visualization Studio and the Museum & Informal Education Alliance) to identify resources for planetariums, especially those pertinent to climate change. The exchange will be two-way with some show-and-tell as to what is available and a discussion as to what planetarians may find most useful and how we might use them. We would also like to brainstorm possible audience activities pertinent to climate change, e.g. seeing and discussing images of predicted shoreline changes in sea level rise or changes in arctic ice. Panelists: Anna Hurst (ASP), Michael McConville (IPS), Jeff Nee (NASA MIE), Mark SubbaRao (NASA SVS), Juan Hurtado (NOA SOS), John Keller (Fiske Planetarium), Jeff Bennett (author). Watch the video. Read the chat. Find resources. Plus, the full 10-min video and slides from Jeff Nee.

• 2024 May 31. Preschool Children in the Dome.  Led by Tony Smith (Astronomy Educator for Online Learning at ASP; planetarian), Anna Hurst (Program Director at the Astronomical Society of the Pacific) and Mary Holt (Planetarium Programs Specialist at California Academy of Sciences). How can planetariums offer engaging programming for preschool children and their families, an audience often overlooked and feared by even the most experienced planetarians? The Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) and California Academy of Sciences (CAS) share some resources and experiences engaging pre-school children in earth and space science and then facilitate a conversation among attendees. What has worked well in your dome? What are the challenges? What support do you need to feel confident about reaching this audience? Watch the video. Read the chat. 

• 2024 Apr 26.  Layers All the Way Down: Practical Conversations about Multimedia Editing for Informal Educators.  Ever found something online, an image, a video, a 3D model, and wished you could tweak it just a little bit to perfectly suit your needs?  Do you have any staff/volunteers/student interns who are interested in content creation for social media/programming/marketing/web development?  Do you already have a multimedia project or a workflow that you want to optimize?  Are you looking for educational content and programming ideas for older students or even adults in your community?  In this guided discussion participants explore questions about customizing 2D, 3D, and immersive multimedia. Facilitator: Jeff Nee from NASA's Museum & Informal Education Alliance. Watch the video. Read the chat. Download the slides.

• 2024 Mar 29. Using Tactile Images to Make Planetariums More Accessible for Blind and Visually Impaired Learners. What is a tactile image? Noreen Grice shares strategies on making your planetarium and outreach experiences more accessible and inclusive for blind or visually impaired visitors through tactile images. Learn how to be proactive by having materials ready instead of reactive in scrambling to find materials. Be welcoming, descriptive and inspiring! Noreen Grice currently serves as President of the Middle Atlantic Planetarium Society (MAPS). She holds astronomy degrees: a BA in from Boston University, MS from San Diego State University; and MBA in Business Administration from Central Connecticut State University. She is President of You Can Do Astronomy LLC, an accessibility design and consulting company to help planetariums have programs inclusive of visitors with differing abilities. See www.youcandoastronomy.com. Watch the video. Read the chat.

• 2024 Feb 23. Planetarium Past, Present, and Future. This is a special free-wheeling seminar with maximum participant control throughout. Watch the video. Read the chat.

• 2024 Jan 26. Polar Sciences in a Live Planetarium Show. At Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Earth: Pole to Pole was developed in 2018 to show general audiences key visuals about the Arctic and Antarctic, including historic trends of ice extent, oceanic temperatures and currents, and projected sea level rise from melting of the Greenland ice sheet. In this presentation, A.J. Balatico, a graduate student who collected surveys for learning sciences research, discusses the design of the show and how it changed from its beginnings in 2018 to 2020 when Pacific Science Center closed due to the pandemic. He also seeks feedback on future education research in planetariums. A.J. Balatico is a PhD candidate in Learning Sciences and Human Development at the University of Washington, Seattle with research interests in STEM and gifted education equity and access policies as well as formal and informal learning environments. He currently serves as the President of the Graduate and Professional Student Senate at UW. Before his doctoral program, A.J. was a public high school science teacher in Louisiana. Watch the video. Read the chat.

Archive Recordings from Previous Years:

2023 - 2022 - 2021 - 2020 - 2019 - 2018