Sesame Workshop is creating a new planetarium show and outreach activities for children ages 5 and 6 and their families, teachers and other caregivers. Sesame Workshop, the Adler Planetarium & Astronomy Museum, the Beijing Planetarium and the Liberty Science Center will collaborate in this bi-national, China-U.S. cooperative project to produce and distribute a planetarium show and ancillary material and to develop a demonstration outreach program targeted at children ages five and six and their parents. The planetarium show, based around the theme "sharing the sky," will be designed to help Chinese and American children identify differences and similarities in their respective associations to astronomy as exemplified in their own language, stories, lore, and traditions and, through this understanding, develop positive attitudes about one another. Specific science goals include:
Children will become familiar with readily observable properties and changes exhibited by the sun, the moon, and stars.
Children will acquire meaningful additional knowledge about objects in the sky that satisfies and sustains their curiosity.
Children will know that astronomy is an activity that they can do and enjoy, and that astronomers are scientists.
The English and Spanish versions of the program will feature Big Bird and Grover from Sesame Street and Hu Hu Zhu from Zhima Jie (the Chinese adaptation of Sesame Street) who will play the role of a guest from China. The Mandarin version will feature Big Bird, this time appearing as his Chinese equivalent, Da Niao, as well as Hu Hu Zhu and Grover. In this version, Grover will be cast as a guest from America.
