Elmo and kids travel among stars, sort of

ALPENA, Mich. (AP) - Preschoolers from Lincoln Head Start, Ella White Head Start and Alpena Childcare classrooms joined Elmo, Big Bird and Hu Hu Zhu, a Muppet from the Chinese co-production of Sesame Street, while they explored the night sky in a mobile planetarium show created by Sesame Workshop called “One World, One Sky: Big Bird’s Adventure.”

The show travels to schools in an inflatable dome that provides children with an age-appropriate introduction to astronomy while forging cross-cultural connections, according to The Alpena News. The production is made possible by major funding from the PNC Foundation and other partners.

“Our goal in bringing ’One World, One Sky’ to Alpena was to provide local children with an entertaining and educational introduction to science,” PNC Regional President Sean Welsh said in a press release. “This visit was made possible by a grant from the PNC Foundation in support of our signature philanthropic cause, PNC Grow Up Great, a $350 million, multi-year, bilingual initiative that began in 2004 to help prepare children from birth to age five for success in school and life. To date, the program has served 1.5 million children.”

At the “Growing Up Great Together Under One Big Sky” mobile planetarium, each child received a daytime/nighttime activity trilingual poster, and reusable, glow-in-the-dark stars to display at home. Teachers receive astronomy-based curriculum to share with students before the dome arrives, as well as follow-up activities.

The planetarium fits 35 students and six adults to watch a high-definition video animation with stars shooting overhead and Sesame characters that guide them through a trip to the moon.

During the planetarium show, children learn different words in Chinese from Hu Hu Zhu, and discover basic similarities between Hu Hu Zhu and Elmo, like they both enjoy flying kites, but they can’t fly a kite on the moon because there is no wind. Small science lessons are intertwined within the program, along with music and shape identification.

More information is available at sesamesky.