Located in Danbury, Connecticut, the Danbury Public School district includes 13 elementary schools, 3 middle schools, a high school as well as a preschool and alternative schools, serving more than 11,000 students across the district. As part of its mission, Danbury Public Schools aspires to advance all learners to their highest potential, in partnership with families and the community to provide transformational learning experiences that foster thoughtful and prepared graduates.

To support this goal, Danbury invested in Starlab, a portable learning dome designed to bring astronomy, geology, meteorology, and other STEM subjects to life for students from elementary to high school. The district used to borrow a Classic Starlab from another school in the state, and found such value in it that they decided to get their own for the district. With the ability to bring science and math concepts together and curricula aligned to the Next Generation Science Standards, Starlab creates fully immersive learning experiences for students and deepens their understanding of the world around them.

Taking Students from Earth to Beyond with Starlab

It’s not easy to help elementary school students understand complex astronomy topics, particularly if they live in an urban area or small city with light pollution, like Danbury. For the district, this was an opportunity to address that gap by creating a more immersive learning experience that helps students visualize and engage with complex subjects in order to better understand them. 

For example, Kristin Ward, the K-5 STEM Coach for Danbury Public Schools,is able to use Starlab to start conversations about the constellations, taking students on an exciting journey that starts on Earth and zooms out to Orion, Betelgeuse and beyond. This creates a starfield that allows them to discuss changes in temperature and size comparisons to earth. Because Starlab can be location based, it also brings the conversation home as Ward shows students what the sky in Danbury looks like without light pollution.

Starlab, in part, helps the District accomplish its vision and mission to bring transformative learning experiences to its students, specifically by:

• Delivering a fully immersive learning experience, using computer simulations to take students on an adventure that helps them more easily visualize the details of our vast universe.
• Helping students directly connect concepts from instruction to the real world in a way that leads to deeper understanding of course content.
• Support more effective instruction, extending beyond the limits of current curriculum & standards and giving teachers additional and effective ways to delve deeper into topics in astronomy, geology, meteorology, and geography.

Setting Up Students for Success & Deeper Engagement

When Danbury was looking at solutions, it was important for them to get a digital planetarium that was easy to maintain, set up, and train other teachers on. Because every Starlab comes equipped with a dome, digital projector system, pre-loaded curricula, and lessons, Ward is able to expand and supplement the curriculum and incorporate more STEM-related content for students, like the Moon phases.

In fact, using Starlab’s easy-to-navigate software programs along with ready-made videos, she has developed a custom lesson structure specifically for 5th grade aligned with NGSS, during which Starlab serves as a culminating learning experience.

Ward takes an inquiry-based approach, introducing Starlab and the subject, engaging students, and then encouraging teachers to probe deeper on certain phenomena. As next steps after each Starlab session, teachers are encouraged to collect and investigate student questions, which works to further expand the conversations Starlab started, now in the classroom.

“We’re really just at the tip of the iceberg with what we can do with Starlab in our district. We have 13 elementary schools in our district so it’s challenging to get to all the schools, and right now we’re just focused on grade 5. But Starlab is a passion for me, so the goal is to get through all of the fifth grade in the district and then expand to a fourth grade program. In my heart, I want all of our students to have this experience,” said Ward.

Increasing Scientific Literacy throughout the District & Community

In addition to using it as part of its elementary curriculum, the district plans to expand access to the Starlab experience for the broader community. In collaboration with the family services department in Danbury, the district plans on hosting STEM Nights on the weekends and evenings, using Starlab to increase exposure, particularly for underrepresented families in the community. 

Starlab is so versatile across K-12 and also a more inclusive approach to learning. It lends itself well to students’ diverse backgrounds, physical abilities, and learning needs, providing an unmatched level of immersion and interactiveness. This allows students to more easily visualize concepts being taught and more deeply engage them in the materials–an investment that proves its value time and again, especially when budget constraints remain top of mind of all districts. 

In the future, Danbury looks to build on its momentum and expand access to its other grade levels, including high school, weaving this experience into curriculum across the district so every student can experience it.