Thumbs down on the new Sudekum Planetarium show
June 28, 2008I went to the Adventure Science Center this morning to attend the grand re-opening of the Sudekum Planetarium. And while the planetarium itself is nice technically, the first show they’re launching with commits the cardinal sin of science shows. It’s boring as hell.
The show is called “Stars” and you can guess the content — it’s all about stars. Unfortunately that’s an over-broad topic to try and cover in a 15 minute planetarium show. So the show skims over tons and tons of history, with insipid graphics and rather dull narration provided by Mark Hamill.
If they had picked a narrower topic, like say black holes or red giants, I think it would have helped. Because then the show would have had a narrow focus, instead of meandering aimlessly across the vast general topic of stars.
I actually heard a few of the adults around me doze off. And the only reason the kids didn’t also doze off is they were ignoring the boring animations on the plantarium dome and just whispering to each other. There’s just no way you’re going to get kids interested in science this way.
I really hope they’re able to add better shows in the future. Sudekum is a nice facility, if they can get some content to match they should do fine.