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Nervous about starting at Michigan State? Worried about your class schedule, living away from home, or where to even start? The Spartan Orientation Station (SOS) is a podcast hosted by New Student Orientation staff and was created by students for students. This podcast will launch twice a week throughout the summer, and each episode will feature a unique interview with campus departments discussing their services, common misconceptions, and fun Spartan engagement opportunities. When you need help at Michigan State, it is okay to signal SOS! Don’t worry – MSU is there for you.
You're listening to the Spartan Orientation Station on Impact eighty nine FM, the podcast by students for students. Now this week's episode.
Kirsten Driscoll:Welcome back to the Spartan Orientation Station. On this week's feature of campus and community partners, we will be discussing the Abrams Planetarium. The Abrams Planetarium is located on MSU's campus and has variety of offerings for astronomy education. Hi. My name is Kirsten.
Kirsten Driscoll:I'm a rising third year majoring in social relations and policy, and I am a student coordinator at the NSO office.
Andrew Palmer:And hi. My name is Andrew. I'm a rising fourth year and a student coordinator here at the New Student Orientation Office, and I'm majoring in political science, prelaw, and history. Today, we are welcoming Nada and Chloe from the Planetarium. Welcome to the show.
Andrew Palmer:Can you begin by introducing yourselves and what you do at the Planetarium?
Chloe:Hi, my name is Chloe. I'm a rising third year majoring in Lyman Briggs history, philosophy, sociology of science and how it affects society with a dual degree in anthropology. And I run the social medias at the Planetarium.
Neda:Hi, my name is Neta. I'm going into my last year in the College of Natural Science studying astrophysics. At the Planetarium, I am a presenter.
Kirsten Driscoll:Great. I appreciate you guys both being here. So can we start by talking about what students can expect when they visit the Planetarium for the first time and what sorts of things students can do with the Planetarium? Well, when you
Neda:first enter the Planetarium, it kind of has this museum aspect going for it. First, you'll like meet up with the cashier because that's where you'll get your tickets or if you already bought tickets online which is also an option that's where you check-in to get the physical tickets that we do for attendance and stuff like that. There's kind of a gift counter area in the inside that has planet plushies and all that fun stuff. We also have an entire meteorite exhibit so there's one section of the physical planetarium itself that is dedicated to meteorites found all around the world, going around their different compositions and whatnot, and then one huge like purple box that is dedicated to the meteorites specifically found in Michigan. So it goes a bit over their sizes and where they were found, all that fun kind of stuff.
Neda:They range from all different sizes as well. I feel like two of the biggest highlights for me whenever entering is the gigantic Earth, which if you click a button it actually rotates and there's a fun little hint about the Earth itself if you ever go in that you can try and figure out. And then we also have the first observatory telescope located inside there as well. And that was a Clark telescope that was made in about the 1800s, so it's fairly old, I'd like to say. The main highlight of the Planetarium itself though is the physical show that you go in to watch.
Neda:So inside the huge dome area that you guys have probably seen if you ever drove past Shah or anything like that, you sit inside of there. The first half is a pre recorded movie going over various topics that we have the shows for, and then the second half is a live star talk, which is where I come out a little bit. That's what I do there. I talk about the night sky for that time, along with any other sort of special astronomy events that have been happening.
Andrew Palmer:That is really interesting. And I know as a non STEM major myself, I haven't really thought too much about visiting the Planetarium. Whenever I think of the Planetarium, I think of STEM related classes. So can students from any major engage with the Planetarium, or is it mainly for STEM students?
Chloe:Students from any major can engage with the Planetarium. It is very, very open and welcoming and are willing to answer any questions that you have about space or what goes on behind the scenes with astrophysics and just anything in general.
Kirsten Driscoll:Great. So kind of bouncing off of that, are there any classes or programs at MSU that use the Planetarium, whether just for astronomy majors or for anyone?
Neda:There are a plethora of different classes that you could take in the Planetarium, no matter what college that you're part of. I believe that just about almost every single college on campus has been at the Planetarium at some point, whether that's the education college for planning field trips and stuff like that, whether it's JMC for something business related, and we also even had the College of Law at some point because there is a space law division and we talk about space administration and whatnot while there, but there's a little bit of something for everybody.
Chloe:And if you're in a class and you want to do a presentation at the Planetarium, you can always email Shannon, who is the lead of the Planetarium, to talk with her and get a time set up for your class to come in.
Neda:That's absolutely right, Doctor. Shannon Schmoll.
Andrew Palmer:Well, awesome. I just wanna say I had a massive gasp here when we mentioned space law. That was so sick. So I'm just curious. Could you talk a little bit more about the student jobs or volunteer roles at the Planetarium?
Andrew Palmer:Because I may need to take a look after this.
Chloe:So for volunteer roles, we have something called SIAC, which is Spartan Young Astronomers Club, where the first Saturday of every month, anybody can come in as long as they've passed a background check and volunteer to work with kids and teach them about space by running different stations.
Neda:With SAIC as well, I'd like to mention that we do close down for one month of the year in September, only because that's around the time that we start to have the football games and stuff. And the main, I would argue, highlight of the Planetarium is during the weekends, there is parking right outside of the building, just right across from it. And that parking lot is used for tailgating, so like September we don't typically tend to do it. But outside of that, yeah, it's just about every month. We kind of do a movie or some sort of thematic thing inside of the dome related to the topic for that month, and then it's four main activities outside that rotate amongst the volunteers.
Neda:In addition to that, we also do public school nights. A lot of the time we go out to science nights or just any time they ask us to be there and we have the time and the people, we go out there. And we run different kinds of experiments like a gravity simulator or possibly even the portable planetarium, depending on the scale of it.
Chloe:And then as for the student jobs, we do have a handful of student jobs. You can be a cashier, a presenter, you can help run the social media like what I do.
Neda:Yep. As far as open positions with when you get a position out of the Planetarium, you have it until you graduate. I'm suspecting that we might have something this coming fall for any freshmen who might wanna try.
Kirsten Driscoll:Awesome. So we've talked a lot about student involvement with the Planetarium. So what is one thing you hope every student walks away with after going to the Planetarium for the first time?
Neda:I hope that they come with an appreciation of what the space is because I know that a lot of the times or a lot of students on campus have never even stepped foot inside the Planetarium before. They just walk past and they see this huge green dome and they're just like, what the heck is that? But I hope after attending shows I mentioned earlier to one of our lovely hosts today that the university activities board or UAB hosts a lot of free events at the Planetarium. So you can get a bit more integration into the space with that. But I just hope that they learn a bit more about what we do there and that they like it enough to come back.
Andrew Palmer:And then you both personally, what is your favorite show or event that the Planetarium hosts?
Chloe:I think my favorite event that the Planetarium hosts honestly is Syak because it's so cool to be able to go and work with the kids and hear all these amazing facts that the kids know that I might not have known and just get to see how excited they are every time that they come.
Neda:I have kind of a tie between my two favorite shows. One of them is called The Last Question, which is kind of more of a science fiction show compared to our traditional, like, hard science shows. And that is voiced by Isaac Asimov, who's a pretty popular science fiction writer. And then my other favorite show would be We Are Stars, which is our family friendly show, so just about anybody can see it. But I like it for all ages, and it goes over the composition of stars and all that fun stuff and how we are made of those same properties and whatnot.
Neda:It's just really fun.
Kirsten Driscoll:That is so cool. So we kinda touched on this before, but why do you think having a planetarium on campus is such a valuable part of the MSU student experience?
Chloe:So I think that having a planetarium on campus is such a valuable part of the MSU student experience because it allows us to go and gather to space as any major and learn more about our universe and what makes us, and then also how things are changing in the new discoveries every day.
Neda:Oh, yeah. Agree a 100%. And it can also lead to a bit more protection of the night skies that we have around us. A big thing with the Planetarium is that we're located in a city center. So a lot of people aren't able to see, like, an unpolluted light sky due to all the light pollution that we have around here.
Neda:But when you're able to see it at the Planetarium, it makes you wanna go out further and see that in real life to the huge scales that the stars and the constellations and all that fun stuff is a part of. It makes you wanna protect your night skies just a little bit more.
Andrew Palmer:I love that connection. I have an app. It lets me see the constellations with my phone, so that's always something on my mind. I'm a bit curious. How can students contact or engage with the Planetarium?
Chloe:So the students can contact or engage with the Planetarium by following us on Instagram or following the Facebook page. And if they have a more direct question that they wanna get answered specifically from someone, they can email doctor Shannon at her MSU email, which would show up under Shannon Schmoll.
Neda:I would argue that social media will probably be the best way. Chloe does a really good job of keeping up with all the events we have in all of our current shows, along with posting parts about the sky calendar on there as well. So any current night sky stuff that might be happening, you'd be able to see from there. And with the sky calendars, they're always offered for free at the Planetarium too if anyone wanted to just come by and grab one.
Kirsten Driscoll:So to kind of wrap up, what is your guys' favorite part about working with the Planetarium and about being a Spartan as a whole?
Chloe:So my favorite part about working with the Planetarium is honestly the group of friends that I've made there. I started off as astrophysics even though I did switch my major later on, but I'm still friends with all the astrophysics students. And so being at the Planetarium, it still keeps me connected with them. And it's a smaller community within a large college of people with the same passion.
Neda:For me, as a current astrophysics major, I really like talking about stars and stuff. I like the ability doing what I love and loving what I do at the same time whenever I work there, and I'm able to do that. It makes me really happy just being there a lot of the time.
Andrew Palmer:Well, Kirsten, I can confidently say our listeners next time will see me as a space attorney. And
Kirsten Driscoll:with that, thank you guys for listening to the Spartan Orientation Station. A huge shout out to the Abrams Planetarium for hanging out with us today. We'll see you next time. Bye.
Narrator:Thank you for listening to this episode of the Spartan Orientation Station on Impact eighty nine FM. Let us know what you think by connecting with us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram at MSU underscore NSO.