The Glastonbury Planetarium offers a daytime program built around the Scouts BSA Astronomy Merit Badge. Under the dome, Scouts examine the apparent motion of the celestial sphere, identify the constellations and conspicuous stars required for the badge, and trace the lunar phases to the underlying Sun–Earth–Moon geometry that also produces solar and lunar eclipses. They follow the five naked-eye planets along the ecliptic and consider why only Mercury and Venus exhibit lunar-like phases. Instruction on the Sun — its composition, its relationship to other stars, the nature of sunspots, and the significance of stellar color — grounds the wider study of stars, while a survey of refracting, reflecting, and compound telescopes, together with instruments operating beyond the visible spectrum, introduces the tools of modern observation. The program also addresses safe observing practices, the effects of light and air pollution on astronomy, and career and hobby pathways in the field. Scouts leave with an observing log and a current-season star chart to support that work.
The Glastonbury Planetarium offers a daytime program built around the Girl Scouts Brownie Space Science Adventurer badge. Under the dome, Brownies observe the Moon as it appears during the day and at night, trace its phases across the month, and see how sunlight falling on different portions of the Moon produces the shapes they recognize from the sky. They meet the constellations as patterns of stars linked by both story and science, tour the planets of our solar system, and begin to place Earth within that wider arrangement of worlds. Brownies leave with a moon-phase chart and a simple star map to continue exploring the sky with their families.
The Glastonbury Planetarium offers a daytime program built around the Girl Scouts Junior Space Science Investigator badge. Under the dome, Juniors track the motion of Earth around the Sun to understand what defines a year, calculate their own ages in the years of other planets, and investigate the three-dimensional nature of a constellation — discovering that stars appearing near one another in the sky may in fact lie at vastly different distances. They tour the planets to scale and explore the surface of Mars through current NASA rover missions.
Booking information coming soon!