Resources for Educators

The Appold Planetarium is equipped with a sophisticated digital projector which enables students to experience astronomy in a dynamic and stimulating way. Fly to Mars for sunrise, watch the Moon spin around Earth, or view an eclipse from the Sun! Programs are designed to meet Ohio Academic Content Standards and can be modified to match specific curriculum. The cost is $3 per student, $4 per adult, with one FREE adult admission for every ten students. Reservations require a minimum of 20 paying audience members. For reservations please contact Laura Megeath at 419-517-8897 or lmegeath@lourdes.edu.  Please be aware of planetarium policies. The Appold Planetarium also has public shows.

Program Descriptions:

Wilbear’s Adventure
Grades Pre-K to 1
Wilbear is a teddy bear who wants to fly! Children’s imaginations soar with Wilbear as he learns about flight, from early gliders and the historic Wright Brothers, to his own first flight in a real airplane.
 

Into the Night
Pre-school to 5th grade
Experience the night sky in the middle of the day! Explore the stars and the constellations, and discover the stories behind them in an interactive play. Discover the reasons for a fixed North Star and an ever changing Moon.

Journey to the Planets
Grades 1 to 5
Travel through space to the planets for an in-depth look at what it would be like to live on each planet. Explore the surface of our nearest neighbor, the Moon, watch the changing phases of the Moon and discover the science behind this phenomenon.

Field Trip to the Moon
Grades 1-5
Educator's Guide
Take your class on a virtual trip to our closest neighbor in space with the Field Trip to the Moon. Feel the ground shake beneath you as you experience a thrilling NASA rocket launch, and orbit the Earth to get an astronaut's view of a sunrise in space.  Field Trip to the Moon is a virtual journey created using NASA engineering models and scientific data. Like NASA's astronauts, you will come face-to-face with the challenges and excitement of traveling through space to land on the Moon. Along the way, you'll discover the reasons for the phases of the moon, visit other moons in our solar system, and learn about recent NASA missions to the moon.

Fractals
Grades 2 and older
Educator's Guide
Video Trailer
Journey into the infinitely complex world of fractals – endlessly repeating patterns made from simple algebraic equations! Fractals exist in our natural world and inside our bodies, and can be created by children as well as computers. Each fractal tells the story of the processes that created it -- whether the erosion of a canyon, the evolution of a galaxy, or the computation of an equation. Fractals is a spectacular, award-winning planetarium show that takes viewers on a tour of the fractals in nature and zooms through infinitely complex mathematical fractals. Featuring original music, the show is both educational and highly entertaining.

Two Small Pieces of Glass
Grades 4-12
Educator's Guide
Telescopes help us understand our place in space and telescopes continue to expand our understanding of the Universe. Discover the history of the telescope -- an instrument with two small pieces of glass -- and the discoveries these wonderful tools have made. See how telescopes work and how the largest observatories in the world use these instruments to explore the mysteries of the universe.  While looking through an astronomer's telescope, you will explore the Galilean Moons, Saturn's rings, and spiral structure of galaxies and learn about the discoveries of Galileo, Huygens, Newton, Hubble and many others. You'll be transported to some of the largest observatories in the world, as well as learn about recent NASA missions including the Hubble Space Telescope.

Oasis in Space
Grades 4 to 12
Educator's Guide, Video, and Images
Set off on a journey through the Solar System in search of water, the key to life on Earth. Learn about current space missions searching for traces of life and the hunt for extrasolar planets.

Dawn of the Space Age
Grades 4 to 12
Educator's Guide, Video, and Images
Re-live the excitement of the early days of space exploration, from the launch of the first artificial satellite sputnik, to the magnificent lunar landings and privately operated space flights.

BIG
Grades 5-12
Educator's Guide, Video, and Images
How big is the Universe? BIG looks at how we have started to explore the Universe beginning with space probes reaching out to our own Sun and the rest of the Solar System. Visit nebulae, globular clusters, galaxies and black holes as we travel as far as telescopes can see.

Origins of Life
Grades 5-12
Video trailer
Starting with the Big Bang, the show deals with the pre-biotic chemistry in the Universe, the formation of stars, solar systems and the first life on Earth. Furthermore, Origins of Life covers the great extinctions and our search for life beyond planet Earth. Origins of Life is a inspirational journey through time and a celebration of life on Earth. It features many recent discoveries related to life science, demonstrating that if there was ever a time that science made its greatest advances, it's right now!

Black Holes
Grades 6-12
Educator's Guide, Video, and Images
Deep in the middle of our Milky Way galaxy lies an object made famous by science fiction—a supermassive black hole. The current science of black holes lets us take a simulated flight inside one of these mysterious objects, as well as witness immersive animations of the formation of the early universe, star birth and death, and the collision of giant galaxies.