Astronomy Guided Exploration

Includes 30-minute Solar System Gallery Guided Tour and a related 30-minute hands-on activity. 

Explore the astronomical history of our universe in the Solar System Gallery. Students will encounter interactive displays that allow them to virtually travel to the Moon, learn about gravity, and more. Then, travel to our Universe Gallery to engage with our state-of-the-art OmniGlobe!

Layered Experience: Pairs well with Dinosaur Passage to Pangaea, Dinosaurs: Giants of Patagonia (Planetarium Show) and all astronomy-themed planetarium shows.

Beetles, Bugs, & Butterflies

This artful approach to science motivates students to explore the amazing world of insects while learning about adaptations, physiology, and the role insects play in their daily lives. Colorful, take-home art projects creatively reinforce scientific concepts.

Layered Experience: Pairs well with The Traveling Trunk Show (Interactive Educational Theater) and Flight of the Butterflies (Planetarium Show).

Cosmic Colors: An Adventure Along the Spectrum

Cosmic Colors will take you on a wondrous journey across the entire electromagnetic spectrum. Discover the many reasons for color, like why the sky is blue and why Mars is red. Take a tour within a plant leaf and journey inside the human eye. Investigate x-rays by voyaging to a monstrous black hole and then back at your doctor’s office. You will even see the actual color of a dinosaur, based on recent evidence. Get ready for an amazing adventure under a rainbow of cosmic light!

Layered Experience: Pairs well with Harmonies in Color (Art Exhibition Guided Tour or Exploration) and Bright Light (Class).

Cosmic Colors: An Adventure Along the Spectrum is preceded by a live, presenter-led tour of the current seasonal night sky.

Click here to access the Educator Guide!

NEW for 2019-2020!

Dinosaurs: Giants of Patagonia

You and your students will follow Rodolfo Coria, a world-renowned Argentinian paleontologist visiting sites of major discoveries in Patagonia, and travel back in time to see these amazing beasts come to life on the giant screen. Patagonia has given us the largest living animal to ever walk the Earth, the titanesque, plant-eating Argentinosaur, and its nemesis, the Giganotosaur, a bipedal carnivore that could easily challenge the famous T-Rex.

Layered Experience: Pairs well with Solar System Gallery (Guided Tour) or Geology (Guided Exploration) and Frameworks of Absence: Brandon Ballengée (Art Exhibition Guided Tour or Exploration).

Click here to access the Educator Guide!

NEW for 2019-2020!

Dipper’s Adventure

Dipper the Bear takes young students on a fun-filled, interactive camping adventure to discover constellations, our Moon, and other daytime and nighttime objects in the sky. This live, educator-led program is great for first-time visitors to the planetarium.

Dipper's Adventure is preceded by a live, presenter-led tour of the current seasonal night sky.

Discovery Depot

This gallery stimulates the imagination, encourages exploration, and invites creative play. After a trip through the Children’s Playhouse, young chefs can enjoy nutrition-oriented role play in the kitchen center while little engineers operate the wooden train. Puzzles, books, and games provide plenty of additional opportunities for learning and fun.

Dream Big: Engineering Our World

Dream Big: Engineering Our World celebrates the human ingenuity behind engineering marvels big and small, and reveals the heart that drives engineers to create better lives for people around the world while transforming the way we think about engineering.

Layered Experience: Pairs well with Marbles, Motion, & Magnets, Engineering: Simple Machines, Engineering Encounters, and Robot Design Challenge (Classes).

Click here to access the Educator Guide!

Flight of the Butterflies

Follow the monarchs’ perilous journey, join hundreds of millions of real butterflies in the remote mountain peaks of Mexico, and discover the compelling true story of a scientist’s 40-year search to find the monarchs’ secret hideaway in this beautiful scientific adventure.

Layered Experience: Pairs well with The Traveling Trunk Show (Interactive Educational Theater) and Beetles, Bugs, & Butterflies (Class).

Click here to access the Educator Guide!

Forces of Nature

Follow scientists on ground–breaking quests to understand what triggers earthquakes, volcanoes, and tornadoes.

Geology Guided Exploration

Includes a 30-minute Solar System Gallery Guided Tour and a related 30-minute hands-on activity.

Get hands-on with geological processes and activities in the Solar System Gallery. An exhibition of minerals and fossils, including a 65-million-year-old authentic Triceratops prosus skull, will teach students about our aging planet. 

Layered Experience: Pairs well with Dinosaur Passage to Pangaea and Dinosaurs: Giants of Patagonia (Planetarium Show).