CU Planetarium's Astronomy Day To Feature Show In Spanish

The University of Colorado at Boulder's Fiske Planetarium will host Colorado Astronomy Day, featuring telescope demonstrations, talks and star shows, including one in Spanish, on Saturday, Sept. 15.

Colorado Astronomy Day is part of CU-Boulder's Arts and Culture Week featuring the artistic and cultural highlights of the Boulder campus through a series of events from Sept. 13 through Sept. 20. The planetarium events are free and open to the public and begin at 1 p.m.

Doug Duncan, director of Fiske Planetarium, will present a talk on "Innovative Science Education at CU" at 1 p.m., followed by the show "Tormenta Espacial," or Space Storm, which will be presented in Spanish, at 2 p.m. Tito Salas, Fiske Planetarium's operations manager, will present a live "star chat" in Spanish after the show. At 3 p.m. "Space Storm" will be presented in English. The Boulder Astronomy and Space Society will demonstrate telescopes and a sunspotter, a telescope used to view the sun, at the planetarium from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

Making the planetarium and its educational programs accessible to the region's Spanish speakers is an ongoing goal for the planetarium. Within the last year, all of the visual exhibits in the planetarium's lobby were translated into Spanish, and are now presented in Spanish and English. Planetarium officials hope to offer more presentations and shows available in Spanish in the near future, according to Suzanne Traub-Metlay, Fiske Planetarium's education programs manager.

"With 10 percent of Colorado's economy linked to the aerospace industry, astronomy education is workforce development," said Traub-Metlay. "As baby boomers start to retire, it is crucial for companies to train new scientists and engineers to take those jobs within the next several years. Colorado kids, whether they speak English or Spanish, should be at the forefront of that employment wave."

Fiske Planetarium is located on Regent Drive at Kittredge Loop Drive on the CU-Boulder campus. For more information about Colorado Astronomy Day visit coloradoastronomyday.org/. To learn more about Fiske Planetarium call (303) 492-5002 or visit the Web site at fiske.colorado.edu.