I joined the International Planetarium Society’s Education Committee back in 2018. The committee comprises a group of a couple of dozen planetarians from around the world, who help serve the IPS community by contributing to projects and by answering individual enquiries.
In January, the committee Chair, Shannon Schmoll, was voted in as IPS President Elect. This is great news for the IPS! But it of course means Shannon no longer has time to lead the Education Committee. I was honoured to be asked to step up as Co-Chair, alongside Ken Brandt from Robeson Planetarium, in North Carolina USA.
Ken and I are excited to start moving forward with new projects as soon as practicable. The last few years have seen a lot of disruption to IPS activities due to world events, and we hope that the committee can now move back to something closer to normality.
All of this means that it’s the perfect time to let us know if you have any ideas about how the Education Committee could support your planetarium’s educational activty. What types of resources would be most helpful to you? What are your barriers to improving your practice? You can get in touch with any ideas (however nebulous!) at our new email, education@ips-planetarium.org.
Education Committee activities include:
A regular column, “Seeking What Works” in The Planetarian magazine to share best practice. Also occasional other articles, including my “Danger, Misconception Ahead!” columns (see previous blog posts).
Regularly updating a white paper with collected evidence for the value of planetaria in education (we are doing an update right now).
Creating and collating useful educational planetarium resources on the IPS website. We are currently planning to reorganise these to make them easier to search.
Answering individual member queries about educational matters, such as requests for teaching methods for specific topics, or support for research studies.
Organising/chairing educational sessions at IPS conferences and other events.
Supporting external projects, including this survey for planetarians about educational fulldome films.
We are particularly interested in exploring how the Education Committee might support educational research, facilitate skill-sharing in the teaching of classic astronomy concepts, and promote innovative educational uses for the dome. It’ll take us a little while to get up to speed as we assess member need, committee capacity, and explore different potential ideas, but watch this space!