Florida has Cape Canaveral and Houston has NASA, but when it comes
to the most basic means of space exploration, Iowa has a leg up on many
parts of the country.
“The nice thing is that the sky is still accessible in Iowa,” Jay Staker, associate director for the Iowa Space Grant Consortium, said Saturday at the inaugural Spacetacular event inside The Englert Theatre.
Although light pollution can stymie stargazing in more populated regions, here in the Midwest, a quick drive out of town can reveal the full brilliance of the night’s sky. Organizers hope that after attending Saturday afternoon’s outreach event by the Iowa Space Science Center Initiative, children and their parents will spend a bit more time taking advantage of that view.
Kids crowded into an inflatable planetarium on the stage at the Englert, where they oohed and ahhed when the flashlights dimmed and the domed ceiling lit up with stars.
“Nowadays with kids really socked into videogames and being indoors, the amount of time they really look at the stars at night is very small,” said Charles Miller, director of Iowa Space Grant Consortium, the new Iowa City-based nonprofit that organized the event. “So to have something like this is a way to reintroduce them to something that basically everybody has always known about, except for the people of the last 50 years.”
The free event, which included a screening of the film “Apollo 13,” featured presentations on the solar system from University of Iowa professor Donald Gurnett and space historian Andrew Chaikin.
“I love the enthusiasm of the kids,” said Chaikin, a Vermont-based journalist who has written about the moon missions. “Space is a magnet for kids to study science, math and engineering. When they’re young, they have such a wide-eyed sense of wonder, and space exploration is one of the most wonder-filled subjects I can think of.”
The Iowa Space Science Center Initiative, which formed last fall to promote science to new generations of children, received funding for the event from the Iowa Space Grant Consortium and the University of Iowa Department of Physics. The organization rented the planetarium, though it hopes to raise money for the first permanent star display for the Iowa City area.
Ken Gayley, an associate professor in the University of Iowa’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, brought his 8-year-old children Anna and Peter to the planetarium. While the kids had been to similar events at their elementary school, Gayley said Saturday’s display was visually more impressive.
“This one is bigger and brighter and easier to walk into,” Gayley said.
Chaikin, who grew up in the space age, said he wanted to be an astronaut as a kid. But when that didn’t work out, he did the next best thing by interviewing many of the people involved with the moon landings for first book, “A Man on the Moon.”
“I’ve had a lot of great experiences in my career, and I like sharing that with the kids and getting them fired up about space,” he said.
“The nice thing is that the sky is still accessible in Iowa,” Jay Staker, associate director for the Iowa Space Grant Consortium, said Saturday at the inaugural Spacetacular event inside The Englert Theatre.
Although light pollution can stymie stargazing in more populated regions, here in the Midwest, a quick drive out of town can reveal the full brilliance of the night’s sky. Organizers hope that after attending Saturday afternoon’s outreach event by the Iowa Space Science Center Initiative, children and their parents will spend a bit more time taking advantage of that view.
Kids crowded into an inflatable planetarium on the stage at the Englert, where they oohed and ahhed when the flashlights dimmed and the domed ceiling lit up with stars.
“Nowadays with kids really socked into videogames and being indoors, the amount of time they really look at the stars at night is very small,” said Charles Miller, director of Iowa Space Grant Consortium, the new Iowa City-based nonprofit that organized the event. “So to have something like this is a way to reintroduce them to something that basically everybody has always known about, except for the people of the last 50 years.”
The free event, which included a screening of the film “Apollo 13,” featured presentations on the solar system from University of Iowa professor Donald Gurnett and space historian Andrew Chaikin.
“I love the enthusiasm of the kids,” said Chaikin, a Vermont-based journalist who has written about the moon missions. “Space is a magnet for kids to study science, math and engineering. When they’re young, they have such a wide-eyed sense of wonder, and space exploration is one of the most wonder-filled subjects I can think of.”
The Iowa Space Science Center Initiative, which formed last fall to promote science to new generations of children, received funding for the event from the Iowa Space Grant Consortium and the University of Iowa Department of Physics. The organization rented the planetarium, though it hopes to raise money for the first permanent star display for the Iowa City area.
Ken Gayley, an associate professor in the University of Iowa’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, brought his 8-year-old children Anna and Peter to the planetarium. While the kids had been to similar events at their elementary school, Gayley said Saturday’s display was visually more impressive.
“This one is bigger and brighter and easier to walk into,” Gayley said.
Chaikin, who grew up in the space age, said he wanted to be an astronaut as a kid. But when that didn’t work out, he did the next best thing by interviewing many of the people involved with the moon landings for first book, “A Man on the Moon.”
“I’ve had a lot of great experiences in my career, and I like sharing that with the kids and getting them fired up about space,” he said.
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