Glendale News Press, CA
Feb 15 2008
The constellation prize
Mobile planetarium comes to Chamlian Armenian School, teaching a
variety of astronomical facts.
By Angela Hokanson
Mario Tomic of Mobile Ed Productions points out constellations
Thursday to third-graders at Chamlian Armenian School in a portable
planetarium. The astronomy lesson marked the first time the school
had used a mobile planetarium. (Tammy Abbott/News-Press)
Students gazed up at a starry sky from the inside of the auditorium
at Chamlian Armenian School on Thursday, picking out constellations
and locating the North Star.
The children learned about the solar system and the Milky Way galaxy
while ensconced under a billowing tarp known as the Sky Dome
Planetarium. The mobile planetarium, which is a program run by Mobile
Ed Productions, a Michigan-based educational programming company, was
spending the day at the school for the first time to teach students
about astronomy, said Rita Kaprielian, the school’s vice principal.
`We don’t see the stars as much as we used to,’ Kaprielian said.
Students sat in the belly of the 15-foot-high, 36-foot-wide
planetarium, which was set up in the school’s auditorium, and
listened to Mario Tomic, a presenter from Mobile Ed, explain some
basic concepts of astronomy.
In the darkened planetarium, Tomic showed the students bright photos
of planets like Mars and Venus, and explained how it took each planet
a different amount of time to circle the sun, so that each planet’s
years were different lengths.
While on Earth, the third-graders in the planetarium were 8 years
old, on Mars – which has years that are 687 days long – the students
would be half as old.
`So now, you’re 4 years old, something like that,’ Tomic said.
He talked about the Big Bang Theory, the Hubble Space Telescope and
black holes, but the students’ gasps of excitement really began when
Tomic illuminated the ceiling and walls of the planetarium with
stars.
He explained how different cultures invented different characters out
of the patterns of stars they saw in the sky.
`They created all kinds of images to find some kind of order in the
overwhelming chaos of the night sky,’ Tomic said.
He showed the students how to recognize constellations such as the
Great Bear, the Little Bear, Orion and particular stars like the
North Star and the Dog Star.
`We are facing north,’ Tomic said after showing the students the
North Star. `We are not lost anymore.’
At Tomic’s invitation, Nicco Hartounian, 8, stood up and used a laser
pointer to show his classmates the constellations that Tomic had
taught them.
As the school’s third-graders emerged from the darkened dome, shading
their eyes from the sunny day, they said they loved seeing the stars
projected on the ceiling and walls of the dome, and they had picked
up some new facts, too.
`I didn’t know that there were gas planets,’ said Edwin Daneelian, 8.
Despite this new knowledge, Earth remained his favorite planet, Edwin
said.
`I never knew that Pluto wasn’t a planet anymore,’ said Shant
Hambarchian, 8, referring to the fact that Pluto has been relabeled a
`dwarf planet’ by astronomers.
Third-grade teacher Jennifer Shamoyan said her students would be
starting a unit on the solar system next week so the assembly was a
good preview.
`He covered a lot of things that we are going to cover,’ Shamoyan
said.