If you don't think your inner child isn't still clapping its hands for glee and wide-eyed with world wonder, you haven't met Trish Pattison.
She works for the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre in Vancouver as an outreach programmer. That means she gets to take the massive facility's portable unit, a mini-planetarium, to schools all over the province so kids can step inside the awe and astonishment of the cosmos without leaving their familiar home neighbourhoods.
Pattison spotted something curious and wonderful that the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre staff had not anticipated. That discovery is what led to a special one-night-only event happening in Prince George on Tuesday night.
"We found as we spend weeks touring local elementary schools and high school that kids were going home so excited about space and science that parents wondered just what their children had done at school," said Pattison. "Soon parents were arriving at the end of the day asking if they too could pop into the dome and see the stars before we packed up. Multiple parents and younger siblings would be waiting at the end of our school day and we decided that a community night would be an opportunity to welcome everyone."
So, the whole community is invited to this free night of exploring space and imagination. The H.R. MacMillan Space Centre portable planetarium will be set up at Immaculate Conception School (3285 Cathedral Ave.) from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m.
"It's a really big, inflatable dome that holds 30 people and projects the stars," said Pattison. "Affectionately called by younger kids as the Big Blueberry, the dome is like a space ship that can transport you off the earth to the edge of a black hole, and everything in between. This is a live presentation with lots of time for question-and-answer."
Plenty of local schools in Prince George and Mackenzie will get a visit from the Big Blueberry, but this is the only scheduled night for family, friends and community to come see the facility.
"Everyone will get a tour through the solar system and beyond as we zoom outside of our local neighbourhood of planets and see the Milky Way like we have never experienced," Pattison said. "Hear space centre staff talk about the latest exoplanet discoveries and explore what challenges are faced with landing a robot on Mars. Remember, the kids of today will be the leaders of the next Mars mission and perhaps the first generation to live on Mars in the next 30 years."
To make that knowledge more tactile, the space centre experience will include astronaut badges to touch, space food to observe close up, plus plenty of toys, tools and personnel from The Exploration Place and the Prince George branch of the Royal Astronomical Society also there to support the elements brought in by the H.R. MacMillan Space Centre education crew. It's an effort to stimulate and inspire minds to the boundless possibilities of science, technology, engineering and math.
