Cindy presently facilitates the implementation of a grant focused on providing immersive educational experiences using a GeoDome. To imagine the structure of a geodome think in terms of the blow-up, large size, outdoor structures you sometimes see temporarily set up in parks during the summer to provide fun for kids repurposed as a mobile planetarium and more. The key to the immersive experience is a special 3-D projection system. The effect of being in the environment can be quite physical – if the sky suddenly begins to spin around you it is difficult to stand up.
The twin goals of the project, at least as I understand them, are to bring unique science experiences into area schools and to expand how pre-service teachers think about science education. The system is most fully developed as a planetarium, but is capable of offering other experiences. I took the following pictures at a DomeCast – a presentation on the geology of oil streamed to interested sites from Denver.
