Bringing the constellations to North Carolina schools

“I’ve always wondered what it’s like shooting through space and what the stars look like because I’ve never seen all those constellations before.”

As Caelen Taylor, a third-grader at Waddell Language Academy in Charlotte, watched the sunset and the night sky rise over the horizon, the light cast by the moon and stars revealed her awe-struck face.

It’s not that she had never seen stars before, but at 9 a.m. — and while sitting on the hardwood floor of an auxiliary gym — you don’t expect to see the Little Dipper shining.

Caelen and her classmates experienced the stars thanks to the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center’s inflatable Mobile Planetarium.

The mobile planetarium was made possible by a private gift. Morehead Planetarium scholarship funds also help to offset costs to schools to bring the mobile planetarium to them.

This is story number 21 in the Carolina Stories 225th Anniversary Edition magazine.

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