Lars Broman, Strömstad Academy, lars.broman@stromstadakademi.se

Lars Broman, Strömstad Academy, lars.broman@stromstadakademi.se

My earliest experience of a Science Circus type activity was in the fall of 1989, when Broman Planetarium inaugurated its travelling exhibition Astronomia at Västra Frölunda Cultural
House in Göteborg.
Astronomia consisted of a Starlab Planetarium, exhibits, and several interactive astronomical models. These included
a rotating earth with tiny sundials, lit from one side,
a quatro stagioni exhibit with four earth globes lit from a central sun,
a sunlit moon orbiting the visitor's head, and
a scale model solar system, built in the scale 1:10 billion and stretching far outside the Cultural House - the model even included a tomato-sized model of Proxima Centauri at National Institute of Silicon Technology in Islamabad,
Pakistan.
Lars Broman, Strömstad Academy, lars.broman@stromstadakademi.se

Astronomia was set up att several Swedish museums until it in 1992 finally broke up: the Starlab continued as Broman
Planetarium's travelling planetarium and the exhibits and models became the new Falun Science Center's base exhibition.
I and my colleagues continued travelling activities both with
Starlab (now two mobile ones) and with interactive exhibitions ( Albert & Einstein from 1990, Water Laboratory
H
2
O(x) from 1996, Mathematical Puzzles from 1998).
It was first when we learned from Ivar Nakken’s Norwegian
Science Circus at the Nordic Planetarium Association
Conference in Göteborg 1997 that we realized that we ought to try and put our Falun Science Center on the road.
Lars Broman, Strömstad Academy, lars.broman@stromstadakademi.se

The idea was marketed in the Swedish region Dalarna, and the first to hire a Science Circus was the city of Ludvika, where we set it up in the Lingongården community hall, adjacent to the library, for seven days in March 1998.
Monday - Friday we gave six pre-booked school shows and one show for a general audience in Starlab. Saturday and
Sunday we gave six shows for the general public.
Outside the Starlab, we had our traveling hands-on exhibitions Matematical Puzzles and Electrical Workshop , some exhibits from H
2
O(x) , our fakir chair (where you sit on top of hundreds of nails) and a small museum store/reception desk .
Lars Broman, Strömstad Academy, lars.broman@stromstadakademi.se

Just one person from Falun Science Center was in charge each day, and he spent most of the day in the planetarium, but librarians took turn in taking care of the reception desk and looking after the hands-on activities.
Seven daily planetarium shows was made possible by making them only partly live.
Thus, the school show consisted of Broman Planetarium's
Journey in Space , a presentation of tonight's sky, and a question-and-answer session.
The general audience show instead featured Broman
Planetarium's Close Encounter with Cosmos .
Lars Broman, Strömstad Academy, lars.broman@stromstadakademi.se

Both feature programs have been used for a couple of years in Falun Science Center's Stella Nova Planetarium, but for this occasion they had been converted from the original slide-and-audiotape format to VHS cassette.
We used a small Sony video projector, and it worked really well inside the Starlab.
The normal drawback of this inexpensive projector - lack of brilliance - was indeed an asset in the darkness of a planetarium!
During the coming year, Science Center from Falun were brought to some other places in Dalarna, either the whole set-up or part of it.
Lars Broman, Strömstad Academy, lars.broman@stromstadakademi.se

Learning and playing in the exhibition hall
H2O(x) exhibit How much weighs the water in your body?
Lars Broman, Strömstad Academy, lars.broman@stromstadakademi.se

Electrical Workshop
Mathematical Puzzles
Lars Broman, Strömstad Academy, lars.broman@stromstadakademi.se

Family watching a star show in the planetarium while some children wait for their turn.
Lars Broman, Strömstad Academy, lars.broman@stromstadakademi.se

Starlab projector seen from the south and from the north
Lars Broman, Strömstad Academy, lars.broman@stromstadakademi.se

FIN
Lars Broman, Strömstad Academy, lars.broman@stromstadakademi.se