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Thursday, March 27, 2008

Space and Stars and Stories

Today we took the kids to see a special space exhibit at a local museum. Pippi has developed a love for space - and would like to work for NASA someday (as a person who stays on the ground, not an astronaut) so she was particularly interested in this exhibit.

There were two parts. One was the main exhibit, Blast Off: A Space Journey, that is largely geared toward early elementary-school aged children. The other was a traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian featuring pictures taken in space. The pictures were fascinating and really grabbed her interest (I tried to keep up with Harry who wasn't quite as interested in reading all the text accompanying the pictures).

Some of the pictures don't even look real - it's like they are drawings or modern art or something. But yet they are pictures taken of the planets and moons and asteroids here in our very own galaxy. It's an amazing world we live in. Pippi's theory is that the beautiful planets were put there by God for our enjoyment. And why not?

There was one added feature - and that was a planetarium show. Now I've been to several different planetariums - but this was the first time I was ever in an inflatable one. Think blow up jumping place - but instead of a bouncy floor - a dome featuring the night sky. The woman who did the presentation was wonderful, explaining how in early societies they needed to watch the skies to know the seasons (the weather doesn't change that much in Greece) and made up stories to help them find the stars, see their placement, and I suppose keep themselves entertained in the days before Play Station.

So it was an afternoon of space, stars and stories - and if it weren't cloudy we could have gone out tonight and seen if we could find any of the constellations we learned about today.

(Do you think I should tell Pippi that she might need Math if she works for NASA? - Naa, why ruin her dream.)

4 comments:

PJ Hoover said...

Oooh, inflatable planetarium. I may have to use this idea in the future.

Unknown said...

That sounded like a fun and interesting afternoon. I got to go to the Kennedy Space Center once. It was also fun, and the planetarium presentation was great. Depending what Pippi does a NASA, she may not need math. All areas of business and then some need writers of some sort.

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anne K said...

Sounds like it was a great outing!