Generating Stars in Southampton

Since 2011 when the Soton Astrodome was established my team has taken the mobile planetarium into over 200 schools. We typically visit up to 40 schools a year with our engaging planetarium shows. Our aim is to inspire young people in Southampton and the local area to study physics and astronomy and become excited about our research.

Who Am I?

I am Sadie, the Outreach Leader in Astronomy, as well as managing the Soton Astrodome school visits with my team, AKA #OurGreatestTeam. I also organise Stargazing evenings on campus and public engagement events in the local area such as the #AstroAirport project at Southampton Airport.

The Soton Astrodome Story

Our mobile planetarium school visits with the Soton Astrodome allow up to 200 school children to see an astronomy themed show each day. The students get the opportunity to tour the night sky and use the fantastic ‘stellarium’ software to pick out the major constellations in the northern sky. The content of these talks closely follows the Primary, GCSE and A level syllabuses and are tailored to each group’s needs to make sure they get the best possible experience.

Unfortunately, this project is now one of the many outreach projects that have suffered a big reduction in funding, and we need your help to carry on reaching out to local schools. We want to raise at least £6,000! This will allow us to offer up to 24 local schools & colleges mobile planetarium visits free of charge in this academic year.

We really want this project to continue, it not only inspires the school students we work with but the the PhD and Undergraduate students who work in #OurGreatestTeam also gain valuable transferable skills as a result of presenting the shows in schools.

Where will your money go?

• Just £250-350 means we can offer a full day of mobile planetarium shows to a local school.
• With £6,000 we can do up to 24 school visits & reach up to 4,750 students before September 2018.
• Each school visit with the mobile planetarium costs from £250 to £350.
• Van hire and Insurance costs for 1 day = £40
• Payment for 1-2 undergraduate/PhD student presenters for the whole day = £170 - £270
• Lunch for the Soton Astrodome team on the day = £20
• Marketing and printing costs = £20

Rewards

We have some fab rewards if you pledge to our cause; these include handwritten thank you cards, shout outs on Twitter, mugs, t-shirts, wristbands and constellation umbrellas!

Check them out on the right hand side of this page --->>

Once again a 'MUHASSIVE' thank you to everyone who donates, whatever the amount you might give :) myself, my team and the school students are so grateful to you for your support.

LINKS

If you want to know more about the Soton Astrodome project you can find our website here:

www.astrodome.soton.ac.uk

We are also on Twitter and Facebook:

www.twitter.com/SotonAstrodome

www.facebook.com/SotonAstrodome

Please help us succeed in reaching our goal of £6,000 by 15th Dec 2017.