The Napa County Office of Education (NCOE) is a public agency in California that provides educational programs, services, and support to schools, students, and educators within Napa County. It plays a central role in offering programs tailored to diverse student populations, including special education, alternative education, career technical education, and early childhood programs. 

In support of its mission, the NCOE provides student-centered programs that support equity, college readiness, and career preparedness, including after-school and summer programming that integrates Starlab, a portable learning dome designed to bring astronomy, geology, meteorology, and other STEM subjects to life. Napa County invested in three Starlabs—one for Napa and two for Santa Rosa—in order to foster transformative learning experiences for students across seven different elementary schools’ expanded learning programs (ELP).

Building Growing Interest in Science & Deepening Students’ Understanding of the World Around Them

As all teachers know it’s hard enough to engage students during a typical school day, let alone first thing in the morning, after a long school day, or over the summer as part of expanded learning programs. It’s also challenging to tie their ELP experiences to their classroom learning. Using Starlab, the NCOE is able to offer learning opportunities for students in the county’s after-school and summer programs that is both fun and engaging, but more importantly, complements what students learn at school and exposes them to new experiences.  

When evaluating resources and opportunities, the NCOE considers whether it will bring something to students they can’t get from the school day or their personal lives.The NCOE’s expanded learning programs serve mostly low-income schools, so many students haven’t had the opportunity to take immersive field trips or visit planetariums. In fact, the local planetarium never reopened after 2020, making it difficult for most students to have an “out of this world” experience. 

As a result, many concepts around space and astronomy remain nebulous and hard for students to understand. For the NCOE, Starlab serves as an opportunity to address the gap and spark student curiosity by creating a more immersive learning experience that helps students engage with and understand complex subjects. 

Starlab helps the Napa County Office of Education:

• Offer a fully immersive learning experience, using a portable dome, state-of-the-art projector, and curricula to take students on an adventure that helps them more easily visualize the details of our vast universe.
• Directly connect concepts and instruction from the classroom to the real world in a way that leads to a deeper understanding and interest in STEM-related topics, regardless of age or grade level.
• Deliver after-school and summer learning experiences at scale across multiple grade levels, extending beyond the limits of current curriculum and standards in order to expose students to topics they might not get enough of at school.

Setting Up Students for Success & Deeper Engagement

Every Starlab system comes equipped with a dome, digital projector system, pre-loaded curricula and scripts, as well as lessons aligned to Next Generation Science Standards–and can be easily set up in under 20 minutes. With a young staff, Melissa Moore, the Community Program Manager, is able to train staff easily and get them up to speed quickly to teach grade-appropriate topics in areas like astronomy.

Starlab spans multiple grade levels so it’s easy to engage all of the students in their programs. It also allows Moore and her staff to go deeper with students on certain phenomena. “For many of our students, from kindergarten to sixth grade, they’ve never had an experience like this so it’s very exciting. We create a beautiful and enriching experience that  can expand students’ thinking.Over time, the learning starts to lock in, and it’s so gratifying.” 

Each of the seven elementary school sites is able to keep a Starlab for at least two months out of the year, providing open access for students and teachers. NCOE staff members come in to conduct different lessons with different curriculum for each grade either after school or during the summer months. In this way, Starlab can serve as a vehicle for guiding and advancing instruction around specific topics for teachers during the school year.

In addition to federal ESSER funding, the NCOE applied for and secured state-based ESSER funds specifically for summer programs as well as grant funding through ELOP, Expanded Learning Opportunities Program in the state of California, helping make Starlab a reality for its district schools. ELOP mandates that every elementary school in the state run an after school and summer program. They provide funding for districts to make education-based purchases like Starlab—a one-time turnkey investment that can serve a wide-range of age groups with diverse subject matter, but without requiring a significant time investment for staff training. 

Up Next? Increasing Scientific Literacy throughout the Community

In addition to using it as part of its expanding learning programs (summer and after-school programs), the Napa County Office of Education looks to expand access to the Starlab experience for the broader community. In collaboration with one its schools, the NCOE will host a Starlab session as part of the schools’ STEAM Night—increasing exposure particularly for underrepresented families in the community. 

Because of Starlab’s versatility, it lends itself well to people’s diverse backgrounds, physical abilities, and learning needs, providing an unmatched level of immersion and interactiveness. This allows viewers to more easily visualize concepts being taught and more deeply engage them in the materials. In the future, the NCOE will look for additional opportunities to bring the Starlab experience to more students across the county.