Space Night was “out of this world” fun. Students in the 2/3 Discovery Class at Grant Elementary returned to school at 7:00 p.m. to participate in an evening of space related activities and then have a sleep over at school.
The children did jet propulsion experiments with Sarah’s dad, Dr. Dave Matthiesen, built and launched rockets with Curtis’ mom, Dr. Beth Opila, and “paced off the planets” with Robby’s mom, Julie Fehrenbach. Each child also had an opportunity to spend time in the CosmOdyssey Portable Planetarium learning about Greek, Native American, and African constellations.
Next, the students played Space Jeopardy and then headed out to view the waxing gibbous moon through both telescopes they had constructed and through the Meade telescope purchased with funds from our “Reach for the Stars” grant from The Martha Holden Jennings Foundation. As each child looked into the powerful telescope they let out a gasp or exclaimed, “Wow!” as they saw the details of the moon’s surface. It was a magical experience.
The evening was capped off with a game of constellation ball, a midnight snack, and a space movie. Amazingly, all of the children were asleep by 1:00 a.m. Upon awakening in the morning, the sleepy second and third graders packed up their sleeping bags, helped deflate the CosmOdyssey dome, cleaned up, ate breakfast, and headed home with their parents. It was a wonderful night of just the right mix of learning and fun.
Special thanks to all of the parent volunteers, to The Martha Holden Jennings Foundation for funding our Space Night adventure, and to Extreme Project Astro for bringing The CosmOdyssey Portable Planetarium experience to every student at Grant Elementary during the week prior to Space Night.
The stars are
the street lights
of eternity.
-Author Unknown
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