Cosmos in the Classroom

A material, inflatable, blue dome in a school hall

Cosmos in the Classroom is the University of Hertfordshire’s planetarium in schools programme. We offer full and half day sessions of exciting planetarium shows for all ages in your school. We can adapt shows to suit the curriculum or a certain topic of interest or we have three standard shows to choose from. Each of these can be adapted for any age group. For secondary groups, we can offer expanded versions of the standard shows as well as shows based on University of Hertfordshire astrophysics research on special request. We offer full and half days to suit all needs. The dome fits up to 30 students in at a time.

Scheduling

We are happy to adapt the length and content of planetarium shows to suit the age and ability of groups, and the schedule for the day is up to you. In general, we recommend scheduling 1.5 shows per hour, e.g. three groups coming through the planetarium every two hours. This allows for a 25 minute show, a 5 minute question & answer session, and 5 minutes turnaround either side. For younger groups (reception/year 1) we are happy to do much shorter shows, and for secondary groups we can do one show per hour. An example schedule is shown below.

Standard show contents

Tour of the Solar System: In this show we take a tour around the Solar System, where we visit the Sun and each of the planets from Mercury to Neptune. Throughout we will examine interesting moons and follow famous space missions, and visit some other unusual objects we find in the Solar System.

Tour of the sky and Universe: In this show we cover a broad range of topics, from the constellations to planets, nebulae to galaxies. This show provides the audience with an introduction to all that space has to offer.

Earth, Sun, Moon: This short show is great for young audiences – we take a look at our own planet Earth and then visit the Sun and the Moon. We look at how craters are formed, and how the Sun creates the Aurora Borealis or northern lights. This show can also be expanded to include more science content for older groups who would also like a short show.

A table of an example schedule for a day in a school with Cosmos in the Classroom

Pricing

  • Our minimum cost is £350 for a half day session (4 hours) and £75 per hour thereafter. This includes the time to set up and disassemble the planetarium. We will round to the nearest half hour (for example, if we are there for 4 hours 20 minutes, we will round up to 4 hours 30 minutes).
  • For local schools within 30 minutes travel time from the UH College Lane campus, we do not charge for travel costs, but for schools further afield we charge £70 per hour travel time (so if the school is one hour drive from UH according to Google maps, that would add £70 to the total cost).
  • For the example schedule above we would be on site for 7.5 hours, so the cost would be £612.50 plus additional travel cost where applicable.

Requirements

  • Floor space of 7 x 7 metres
  • Height clearance of 4 metres (including light fittings)
  • Two plug sockets
  • Placement of planetarium dome will not block any fire exits

Booking

To book, please fill out the booking form.

Check availability using the calendar below.

For enquiries, please email our events team at astro-events@herts.ac.uk.

Availability

Please see the calendar for available dates: any timeslot that doesn't already have "CitC" or "School Trip" is available. Please include this on your booking form.