Planets In A Room and how hands-on activities has been forced to switch to online

Federica Duras 1,2,3 , Livia Giacomini 1,2,3 , Francesco Aloisi 3 , Ilaria De Angelis 3 , Stefano Capretti 3

  • 1 INAF - IAPS, Roma
  • 2 Europlanet Society
  • 3 Speak Science, Roma

Abstract

Teaching planetary science using a spherical projector to show the sky and the planets’ surfaces is a very effective but very expensive idea.
Planets in a room does all this. Funded by the Europlanet Outreach Funding Scheme in 2016 and made by the non-profit association Speak Science in collaboration with the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics, Planets in a room (PIAR) is a project with the aim of building a low cost version of a small spherical and planetarium projector that teachers, museum, planetary scientists and other individuals can easily build and use on their own, to show and teach the planets and the stars.
In the past few years it has been presented in many events, science festivals, schools and conferences, getting remarkably positive feedback. In the transition to a partially virtual world its use has been slightly changed to a hybrid form. What are the improvements and what are the difficulties that we may run into in this kind of teaching and outreach technologies and activities? During the discussion we will go through this and much more.

Discover PIAR

Planets In A Room (PIAR) is an innovative education and outreach project in the form of a low-cost version of a small spherical and planetarium projector a “DIY planet simulator” that teachers, museum, planetary scientists and other individuals can easily build and use on their own, to show and teach the planets and the stars. 

JOIN US!

PIAR is distributed through its official website. Any user will be able to build it on his own, use it, develop new content, customize it and distribute to the open community.

Find us at the Euoplanet stand here at EAS2022!

How and where?

Schools, festivals, scientific events, workshops are the places where lots and lots of people have been able to use, learn and have fun with PIAR in the past years. Now, in this partially virtual world its use has been slightly changed to a hybrid form (mix of in person and online activities). 

The creators

PIAR is made by Speak Science, a small no profit italian association with the support and collaboration of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF), the Roma Tre University and the european project Europlanet.

PIAR