See Planetarium Audience Activity Strategies (PAAS)

A Planetarium Is…

The unveiling of the very first planetarium projector was in Jena, Germany in October 1923. It opened to the public with the Deutsches Museum opened in Munich, Germany on May 7, 1925. Centennial celebrations of the invention of the planetarium: 2023–2025. See also the January 2024 issue of the journal Communicating Astronomy with the Public and this article: A Brief History of the World’s First Planetarium.

An interesting way to make an inexpensive planetarium can be found on this web page: A Planetarium for Every Classroom – https://www.cccoe.net/stars/5mdome.html by Jeff Adkins.

A planisphere is a type of star map that is adjustable to show the sky any time of night and any night of the year. In that sense it’s sort of like a hand held planetarium. See Star Maps.

Audience Participation Planetarium Programs

Holt Planetarium at Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS), University of California Berkeley (UCB) was built in 1973 under the direction of Alan Friedman to develop planetarium shows with a novel audience participation style. In the summer of 1978 LHS held five National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded workshops—POP (Participatory Oriented Planetariums)—with 100 planetarium educators.

In the summers of 1989-94, LHS recruited a total of 150 participants for six NSF funded Summer Institutes in Astronomy and Space Science Education for Elementary and Middle Schools. The project was POPS—Participatory Oriented Planetariums for Schools). 

The  participants/graduates of those institutes conducted in-service workshops in their school districts using an expanded Planetarium Educators Workshop Guide: a series of 12 volumes – Planetarium Activities for Student Success (PASS). Because the audience participation techniques work in both public shows and school shows, the name PASS was changed to Planetarium Activities for Successful Shows. PASS programs are not like pre-recorded products that are simply load-and-play. The PASS programs are more akin to classroom activities consisting of a written sample narrative as a guide for live presentation, media (still images and movies), materials and preparation (if needed). 

With the advent and widespread proliferation of digital planetariums at the beginning of this millennium, the LHS team found that the audience participation principle is as valuable as ever.

Planetarium Activities for Successful Shows (PASS)

Most of these were developed in pre-digital years (1973-2005) but remain good examples of audience participation strategies.

Volume 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – PAAS Index

INDEX

1. Planetarium Educators Workshop Guide
2. Activities for the School Planetarium
3. Resources
4. A Manual for Using Portable Planetariums
   
   PLANETARIUM PROGRAMS:
5. Constellations Tonight
6. Red Planet Mars
7. Moons of the Solar System
8. Colors From Space
9. How Big Is The Universe?
10. Who Discovered America?
11. Native American Astronomy
12. Stonehenge
13. Northern Lights
14. Our Very Own Star
15. Strange Planets

Volume 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – PAAS Index

Volume 1: Planetarium Educators Workshop Guide

Cover | Contents | Acknowledgments | Introduction

Vol. 1 Appendices

• A Getting a Workshop Together
• B Workshop and Institute Participants
• C An Annotated Bibliography
• D [has become PASS Volumes 5 and 6; or see original appendix D]

Volume 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – PAAS Index

Volume 2: Activities for the School Planetarium

Book Cover | Contents | Acknowledgments
Introduction by Gerald Mallon -|- Introduction by Alan Friedman
About Planetarium Activities

Volume 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – PAAS Index

Volume 3: Resources for Teaching Astronomy and Space Science

… was a collection of resources from the 1980s, pretty much hopelessly out of date.

Volume 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – PAAS Index

Volume 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – PAAS Index

Volume 5: Constellations Tonight

(originally in Appendix of Volume 1)

Cover | copyright |  contents | introduction | discover more |  acknowledgements

Volume 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – PAAS Index

Volume 6: Red Planet Mars

(originally in Appendix of Volume 1)

Cover | copyright |  contents | introduction  | discover more | acknowledgements

See also these related live interactive planetarium shows developed by Jeff Nee at NASA JPL:

• Life on the Red Planet — script
• The Art of Mars — script
• Media for both the NASA JPL Mars shows

Volume 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – PAAS Index

Volume 7: Moons of the Solar Systems

Cover | copyright |  contents | intro | discover more | acknowledgements

See also Updates to Moons of the Solar System by Jeff Nee.

Volume 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – PAAS Index

Volume 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – PAAS Index

Volume 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – PAAS Index

Volume 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – PAAS Index

Volume 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – PAAS Index

Volume 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – PAAS Index

Volume 13: Northern Lights

Script Booklet -|- Media: Still images -|- Videos (see list below)

Media for Northern Lights – Videos:

• 1a Franck’s Narration (part 1) -|- 1b Franck’s Narration (part 2)
• 2 CME
• 3 TRACE
• 4a Iron Filings -|- 4b Solar Wind 1 -|- 4c Solar Wind 2 -|- 4d Aurora
• 5 THEMIS discovery
• 6 Drawing
• 7 Credits
• Aurora from space (.zip) -|- Effects of Solar Storms on Earth
• IMAGE spacecraft -|- THEMIS ground-based All-Sky Imager (ASI) -|- Earth Orbiting Satellites
• Halloween Storms 2003 (.zip) -|- Solar images – multiwave 

Volume 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – PAAS Index

Volume 14: Our Very Own Star

Script Booklet -|- Media: Still images -|- Videos (see list below) -|- Music

See also: Observing Our Star — a live interactive planetarium show developed by Jeff Nee at NASA JPL.

Volume 1 – 2 – 3 – 4 – 5 – 6 – 7 – 8 – 9 – 10 – 11 – 12 – 13 – 14 – 15 – PAAS Index

Volume 15: Strange Planets

Media – Videos

• Kepler Launch
• Dust Cover Ejection
• Rainbow
• Wobbling Star
• Spectroscopy
• Hot Jupiter
• Habitable Zone
• Kepler’s 2nd Law
• Orrery
• Orrery Synchronized with Live Lightcurve
• Kepler Orbit A, B, and C
• Transit Light Curve version A, version B
• Diversity of Life A, B, C, and D
• Optical Path
• Transit  (orbit inclination)

PAAS Index