Hanscom Middle Schoolers Get Museum Of Science Experience At Home

BEDFORD, MA — Students at Hanscom Middle School would be eagerly waiting for their Museum of Science field trips this week — rushing to get permission slips signed and gossiping about the awe-inspiring planetarium dome they sat in the year before. Students won't get to sit in the planetarium this year, but they will get their trip to the museum, differently.

As coronavirus restrictions closed schools for the year, the chance of an in-person trip fell to the wayside. But Raytheon Missiles & Defense, the Museum of Science and Hanscom Middle School decided to find a way to bring the museum and its programs to the students.

Hanscom Middle Schoolers will be the first students to see the Museum of Science's virtual planetarium school program on Thursday.

For several years, Raytheon has supported the Hanscom Middle School by funding an annual field trip to the Museum of Science. This year, the museum is using Google Meets to connect students to planetarium experts and bring the space program to students' laptops.

The museum's virtual programming, named MOS at Home includes daily live presentations, activities, podcasts, and more, for all ages. In addition, every day MOS Live offers real-time presentations on a variety of science topics and weekly programming in Spanish. Since their debut in late March, the Museum’s online programming has attracted more than 200,000 viewers but hasn't had a school audience yet.

Talia Sepersky, Planetarium Coordinator at MOS said the team at the museum is excited to bring the shows to students, even if the most popular part of the presentation is missing.

"The physical tour benefits greatly from the immersive experience of just being in the planetarium," Sepersky said, adding that students enjoy the feeling of "flying through space" in the dome theater.

While the dome isn't something the museum can relay online, it can bring the information and a theatrical feeling to its virtual shows.

"We're trying to keep it as close to the in-person tour as possible," Sepersky said, "There will be a speaker and a 'pilot' who mans the images and graphics to guide students through the program."

Sepersky has faith that the program will be useful to students learning online and, in the future, to people with accessibility issues or who may find the dome-experience overwhelming. MOS has already started hosting virtual star shows for the public and Sepersky said it has a small but consistent fan base.

"We see the same few names popup for the shows, it's mostly kids which is great," she said.

If the Hanscom students aren't already part of the fan base, Thursday's presentation might just add a few more names to the list.