GRADE 7 PROGRAMS

Ocean & Air Currents - This immersive program allows students to view the Earth’s ocean and air currents from the inside-out. Patterns can easily be seen in this immersive experience and students can easily identify currents and climate patterns on a global level. This program uses a variety of maps including landsat, remote-sensing, and satellite images to help students draw conclusions about the relationship to air and water currents on Earth.

Cycles & Patterns of the Earth & Moon - This program does not merely focus on the naming of Moon phases or the tides; it explains why Moon phases and the tides are cyclical and predictable using a variety of 3D and visual models available exclusively in our planetarium. Advances in current scientific methods as well as a review of the technology that has improved our knowledge about our Moon and tides.

Bubble-ology - This program provides unique experiences where students can discover the characteristic behaviors of bubbles that change depending upon the arrangement of atoms. Why do some bubbles last longer than others? Why are bubbles spherical? Can we create “square” bubbles? It culminates with the class graphically recording their results to observe science-based trends.

Chemical vs. Physical Changes - This is a chemistry demo program that shows how chemical and physical changes occur on a continuum with no distinct lines to definitively separate the two. Students will have a hands-on lab experience illustrating this for themselves.

Mechanical Engineering - Students use a variety of engineering processes to adapt machines to produce an action using gears, pulleys, axles, and more.

STEM Careers by Duke Energy - This in-class outreach program covers a variety of STEM topics and how to prepare for relevant future careers, plus it includes an interactive lab where students use skills necessary for STEM success.

 

GRADE 8 PROGRAMS  

Plate Tectonics - Based on the work of Dr. Paul D. Lowman (Continental Drift theory), this program involves a full-dome projection of active ridges, faults, spreading centers, and volcanic activity over the past one million years. This interactive lesson is great for earth science classes that want an innovative, immersive way to experience geologic formation process and their relationship to plate movement.

Orion’s Night - Students use a star chart to locate four constellations in the Winter sky. This program also relates the color of a star to its relative temperature, brightness, temperature, and distance from the Earth to help explain how we see each star. The concept of light-years is also introduced to help illustrate distance in spacetime.

IBEX - This program explores the differences between revolution and rotation, and how they apply to the movement of the Earth and Sun. The Earth’s axis tilt, and how it affects experienced daylight and seasonal change, will also be covered as students track the direct rays of the Sun through the course of a day in each season.

Electricity & Magnetism - This program gives students a variety of opportunities to work with types of conductors. Students will experiment with electric currents and create their electromagnet to investigate magnetic properties and fields. Building their own energy cars, students will experiment how a generator converts mechanical energy into electrical energy and identify energy transfers that take place.