CONSTELLATION CHARTS

When I did this "Planetarium" project with an Art After School class previously, it was at Comet Ping Pong, and the class was 2 hours long. For the 1-hour class in schools, we switched to black paper and metallic pens (rather than illustrating everything with colored pencil) to make it more time-efficient. The gold, silver, and colored metallic pens are, firstly, super fun to use, and second, may be better suited to a stars-and-space-themed project. I unfortunately don't have any pictures of the constellations projected onto the wall with a flashlight because the room was pretty bright even with the lights off, but here are a few pictures of students and their cool charts.

AAS "PLANETARIUM" CLASS AT COMET

When I was in 3rd or 4th grade, I remember having a special, one-off guest-teacher class inside a blow-up planetarium that was set up in the front lobby of our school. The portable planetarium was just large enough for about half of my class to crawl inside and sit at once. I remember it looking sort of like a large igloo tent that was held up by the air of a fan, with a special projector lighting the curved ceiling of the structure with maps of stars. I've loved planetariums of all kinds ever since, and all the imagery associated with astronomy. 

For the Art After School Planetarium class at Comet, we talked about constellations and constellation charts, and each child made her own. Holes were punched through the constellation charts with pins and tacks, and then each constellation map was projected onto a (very) homemade "planetarium dome" (much more like a small planetarium arch, made of sheets of foam core). I've so far been digging any classes that involve the use of flashlights, and I think I'll be trying out the Planetarium class in the ART BRAINS program in 2012, while we make Shadow Machines in Art After School at Comet. Here are some pictures from the class: