Studying the stars

Pupils used an inflatable planetarium to learn about the night sky as part of a school science week.

The silver dome was inflated in the hall at Halam Primary School and children crawled inside to watch a presentation about space and the planets.

An image of the stars which make up constellations was projected on to the roof of the dome.

Mr and Mrs Mike Morton of Sleaford run StarLincs, which provides the planetarium.

“At the moment Mars is really easy to see with the naked eye so hopefully when the children go home they’ll be able to look outside and see what I was telling them about,” said Mr Morton.

Isabel Dick (9) said: “I learned that some of the different planets are just made up of gas and if you stood on them you could just fall right through them.”

Joseph Combellack (9) learned where Orion, the great hunter, was in the sky.

Among other presentations during science week was one about moon rocks by Professor Ed Copeland of Nottingham University.