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As the last of the animated and wild-eyed kids made their way out through the cave-like entrance of our inflatable mobile planetarium (which incidentally, looks like a giant vulva--yes, THAT vulva--when you look at it from the outside), I let out a sigh, partly of relief, but also one of fulfillment and satisfaction.



The day before, over five hundred elementary kids entered our planetarium and while most came out with expressions of glee in their faces, there were some who came out with a pondering look, perhaps even more bewildered than when they came in, considering the fact that even though at their age bracket I would have been more focused more on making them go "oooh" and "ahhhh" and scream each time I made a planet or an asteroid whiz by, up above their heads inside this simulated dome of interplanetary space, I still consciously exerted some effort to at least etch some basic, underlying principles in astronomy and science in general, into their young, malleable minds, on why things are the way they are in this vast universe we live in. Perhaps you think that this is a pretty huge pill to swallow for young kids, but then that's my cavalry charge, here in my battlefield of reason, fought on the plains of ignorance.



Today, it was the turn of the high school students of this school to enter the planetarium, and I looked forward to this considering I'd be less obliged to impress them in terms of special effects--I thought to myself that perhaps some of these kids have been inside digital or even IMAX theaters, and thus I don't need to show to them the pizzazz of what this sort of technology is capable of. With older kids, I can focus more on using the dome as a tool, and discuss more on the subject matter at hand, rather than it being an instrument for entertainment. But entertaining is not at all bad--it is in fact key to grabbing the attention of these young minds prone to the daily distraction of media and the society around them--sometimes you first have to entertain, before you can educate. This is one weapon we use in this struggle, and we call it 'edutainment'.

Inside the dome, I feel like a wizard--a little bit of sleight of hand is required, for as I wave the laser pointer in my left hand like a wand, to move the sun across the sky in an accelerated state, the fingers of my right hand are actually controlling the simulation via a keyboard--I remember the words of Arthur C. Clarke, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." And magic is indeed an important ingredient--the willingness to suspend disbelief and really accept that you're on a journey through space, seems to be natural among kids than adults--grownups have stopped believing in 'magic'--which is why it doesn't take much effort to actually say to the kids that we are now on the very grounds of their school, accurately simulated inside the dome, and launch them on trips to nearby planets and into the depths of the known universe. This is how magic ought to be--a means to draw interest, but eventually wring out ignorance and turn the kids into critical thinkers--that is the objective of the battle, and those are my victory conditions.

Over nine hundred high school kids experienced the planetarium today, in about ten batches. The tenth batch just exited, and as I stood up and stretched my legs, and rotated my shoulders, I let out an "ehem" several times, and rubbed my adam's apple--after an entire day in the dome, my voice was showing signs of strain and falter, which was normal--you never emerge from the battlefield unscathed.



I stepped out from the dark interior of the dome, to the reddish twilight of the evening sky (it was already around 6:20 PM), and for a brief instant I remember with delight that the simulated sky inside the dome was an exact match of the real sky outside, albeit for the fact that due to a tropical storm near the Philippines, the real sky was nearly overcast, which was too bad, because we had to cancel the stargazing session (which is always optional and only done if the weather is favorable).

But stargazing and showcasing the real sky to the kids using our telescopes is another 'battle', which I will perhaps tackle in another blog entry one of these days.

I watch as the rest of our staff turn off the blower, and the dome starts to shrink and shrivel up like a flower wilting slowly to decay--it has done its job today, and I walk away with a contented smile.