Domes & Goggles

Displaying Media

Engaging students in watershed education in the classroom may not always be exciting or easy for students to visualize. By pairing photo and video imagery in an immersive dome environment, students can be engaged in a new type of learning or supplement experiences from the field. Virtual reality (VR) goggles an another way in which to take students on a tour of the world when it is not possible to otherwise leave the classroom.

Cardboard Dome

Teachers participating in the NOAA B-WET program through the Science Outreach Center in 2018 constructed a cardboard planetarium based upon Beals Science's design.

●Pros: Relatively inexpensive to construct and educational for math class

●Cons: Time consuming to build and disassemble; requires significant amount of space

Inflatable Dome

The Science Outreach Center utilizes an inflatable dome to deliver science programming in the Central Pennsylvania region.

●Pros: Relatively easy setup and tear down

●Cons: Expensive to purchase and maintain; requires significant amount of space

Examples: Digitalis® Domes
The Elumenati Immersive Projection Design

Other Dome Designs

Instructions to construct other dome structures exist on the internet. In addition, some pre-fabricated domes are available.

●Pros: Some designs are inexpensive.

●Cons: Most designs have the supporting dome structure/frame on the inside, with a covering on the outside. Projecting onto the structure instead of a flat surface does not work well for the immersive experience.

Virtual Reality Headsets

When dome construction is not suitable, an alternative display method could be virtual reality headsets, such as Oculus Rift or VR viewers for phones, such as Google Cardboard.

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