Elevate Your Team: Immersive Professional Development
Transform the way your faculty views science—all without leaving your school campus.
The Arkansas SkyDome Planetarium makes professional development fun and inspirational by bringing a state-of-the-art portable planetarium to your teachers. Our 3-hour immersive sessions are designed to re-ignite curiosity while fostering deep collaboration. While our training focus is for Elementary and Middle School teachers, we can provide training for all K-12 staff.
The Environment: A Classroom Without Borders
Step inside our digital dome for a 360-degree sensory experience. Unlike a flat screen, the immersive environment of the planetarium provides a “shared reality” that:
Visualizes the Complex: From the mechanics of the solar system to the historical rise of celestial navigation.
Eliminated Distractions: The unique “dark-sky” environment focuses every participant on the shared goal and lesson.
Inspires Wonder: We provide the “Wow” factor that teachers can translate back into their own classroom curriculum.
The Program: 3 Hours of Discovery
Each session is capped at 30 participants due to the planetarium capacity and to ensure the best interactive experience.
Hour 1: The Immersive Deep Dive
We begin with a full-dome movie related to current events in the space program followed by an update of NASA programs and available resources. We finish the hour by learning how things move and are tracked across the sky with a focus on Arkansas Science Standards. We demonstrate how to use celestial mechanics to teach critical thinking and spatial reasoning.
Hour 2: Collaborative Challenges (Teambuilding)
Outside the dome, we present teachers with teambuilding activities and projects they can take back to their students. With our hands on NASA memoribilia, astronaut autographs, meteorites, and much more we bring STEM and History to life to help teachers create lesson plans for lasting impact on student outcomes. Weather permitting, we also setup a telescope outside to let teachers explore real celestial objects (even in the daytime sky!).
Hour 3: What’s up in the night sky??!!
For the final hour we go back into the planetarium to see what is happening in the current night sky and learn how events will unfold over the next school year. We talk about how teachers can turn those events into lesson plans. We end the lesson with a final full-dome movie.
Why Choose The Arkansas SkyDome for Your Faculty?
We Come to You: No busing or travel logistics; we set up in your gym or cafeteria.
ADE Aligned: Content is crafted to meet state professional development requirements.
Scalable: Host multiple 30-person sessions in a single day to cover your entire staff.
- Immersive: The planetarium makes it easier to demonstrate and understand concepts that are difficult to understand from a book or flat screen.
“It wasn’t just a lecture; it was an experience. Our teachers left feeling like a unified team ready to inspire the next generation of explorers.”
Ready to Schedule Your Session?
Investment: $250 per 3-hour session + mileage and lodging. Capacity: Up to 30 teachers per session. Requirements: Large indoor space.
Visit our Scheduling Page, find an available date and fill out the booking form. Please note your request is for PD Training. We’ll send you a free no-obligation quote.