Building a Repository of Teaching Materials to Support Language Learning Experiences Based on Planetarium Star Shows

By Caitlin Cornell and Zongchen “Sam” Liu, Michigan State University

DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.69732/TGDP2317

Introduction 

The Center for Language Teaching Advancement at Michigan State University has established a repository of teaching materials to support language learning experiences based on planetarium star shows. These materials can be used to facilitate a trip to a planetarium, or teachers can find planetarium shows that are available to be watched through the internet.

Our goals for not only our planetarium partnership project overall (including the repository that we describe in the sections that follow), but also for this article were several. In this article, we: 

1. Introduce instructors to our repository of materials that they can use for in-person visits to a local planetarium or in conjunction with virtual planetarium shows from online resources; 
2. Invite instructors to upload any materials they create related to star shows to our repository so that other teachers can use or adapt them;  
3. Give educators a blueprint they can use if they’re interested in creating a partnership and/or repository like ours (regardless of whether their institution has its own planetarium or has one nearby). 

First, Caitlin Cornell, Assistant Director of Michigan State University’s Center for Language Teaching Advancement, outlines her experience founding and contributing to a partnership project that bridges campus STEM opportunities and world language teaching at Michigan State University. She explains how the partnership was collaboratively established, what decision-making has helped maintain partnership resources, and how the partnership expanded into an adjacent project beyond our own institution (i.e., the repository) over time.  

Sam Liu, Chinese language teacher and former Graduate Assistant in the Center for Language Teaching Advancement, then outlines the authors’ collective experience developing materials for a repository that was established to accompany the partnership and scaffold language instructors’ engagement with planetarium resources.  

How to Use this Article 

Educators who want to use materials from or contribute materials to the repository will probably want to read most of the article from start to finish at some point–especially our examples–but not all sections are equally helpful for instructors (e.g., the “Establishing a Partnership” section). We recommend skimming and scanning the sections that you think are helpful to you.  We think of this as a reference document: important context paired with practical how-to information. Some relevant documents are presented as links at the end of the article so that you can access the details when you’re ready for them. 

Anyone wanting to develop their own partnership or repository (e.g., administrators), will certainly want to read the whole article in total. However, we recommend encountering it in a piecemeal way. Begin with the introduction section and then read other sections as needed during your development process. Again, the details are there when you need them. 

Establishing a Partnership 

In 2019, Caitlin learned from the Abrams Planetarium director, Shannon Schmoll, that the planetarium was already in the position to be able to offer star shows in several languages. Shannon also explained that, with a bit of effort, they could even acquire shows in even more languages by request, many for zero cost. Caitlin left that first meeting on a mission to make sure her language teaching colleagues knew about this unsung resource.  

Caitlin positioned the Center for Language Teaching Advancement (“the center”) to be the sharing mechanism and bridge between language instructors and the planetarium. Caitlin first established a landing page for the partnership where the center could share planetarium resources that were particularly relevant to language instructors, like information about what shows were available currently or by special request (in the star show database), and a star show request form (using Qualtrics; set up to notify both the center and the planetarium when requests came in). 

Early on, the two units decided that the center and the planetarium would share the administrative overhead of the partnership. The planetarium would maintain its database linked on the partnership landing page, and the center would publicize planetarium offerings periodically in its newsletter and on social media.  

The units also decided that it made the most sense for the planetarium to take the lead on incoming requests and handle all the administrative tasks related to the reservation once a request was made by an instructor. The center would use any questions or feedback from incoming requests to inform our procedures, including helpful information that should be added to the Frequently Asked Questions section of the project landing page.  

The two units, along with instructors who had visited the planetarium once we established our partnership, even collaborated on an article together in The FLTMAG. That first, collaborative partnership publication (a) gives information about how the planetarium is able to offer star shows in multiple languages via its connections to other resources and (b) exposits three language instructors’ use of the partnership in their teaching. 

From our language center personnel perspective, we found that this project was, on average, a very manageable one in terms of bandwidth: it was moderately effortful to establish, but fairly low effort later to maintain (depending on factors like how equally you share the administrative load with planetarium personnel and how many instructors take advantage of the opportunity).

Expanding the Project: Materials Repository 

With the partnership established and MSU language instructors starting to visit the planetarium with their classes, we began to think beyond the initial partnership and decided to explore how to scaffold and support language classes’ in-person visits to the planetarium or ways teachers could use virtual star shows from online resources (e.g., YouTube). 

Planetarium shows provide engaging, multimodal, interpretive input, but the narration and content are often fast-paced and linguistically complex, which can make the experience less accessible for language learners. Therefore, language instructors benefit from proficiency aligned scaffolding materials that help students prepare for the show, stay engaged during viewing, and extend the experience into meaningful language use afterward.  The result: Caitlin spearheaded an emerging repository of pre-drafted authentic materials that language instructors could download and use directly or adapt to facilitate class visits to the planetarium.  

At the time this article was written, the center had developed exemplar materials in English (for use in English language teaching contexts as well as adaptable models that teachers of other languages can adapt from) and Mandarin Chinese, with Turkish and French materials coming soon. We also created a mechanism to allow instructors to upload their own materials (e.g., Russian), and designed resources like a materials development guide for instructors and a materials development template (you can find a link to it at the end of this document) to guide the creation of clear materials that anyone can use. That way, instructors who develop their own materials–whether for use alongside freely available online planetarium star shows or to scaffold field trips to the Abrams or another planetarium–can share their materials with others. 

Within the publicly available repository, materials are organized first by language, and then by level. 

Guiding Clear and Accessible Materials Development 

Center personnel were able to make good recommendations for instructors in their materials development because the development recommendations we make in our guide for instructors (you can find a link to it at the end of this document) comes directly from our own experiences. We take careful notes when we develop materials of our own, especially about the decisions we make and what led us to make them. Below is a short list of some of the considerations that we remind instructors about (which appear in the manual with greater explanation and detail). 

1. Select a star show in the language you require either by searching online or visiting the Abrams Planetarium’s star shows database, based on your students and teaching context. Consider the learning outcomes for your course; your students’ proficiency, age (for topic relevance) and interests. 
2. Check the copyright license on the show you selected before developing any materials. Usually you just need to Google the show (whether in-person or virtual) in advance to find its copyright license. The copyright license will tell you, for example, whether you can adapt any portion of the show for educational purposes (which is something language teachers may want to do if a script is above their students’ proficiency level). Sam did his due diligence by checking copyright requirements and emailing for extra permission when necessary. 
3. Familiarize yourself with our materials development template (linked at the end of the article). It’s helpful to follow the template so that documents can be read consistently and approachably by people using the repository materials. The template can also be used like a checklist to remind you of things as you’re building your materials. The template has fields for key activity details, such as the related star show, recommended modality, activity type, proficiency level, suggested grades, approximate time, and objective. The template asks you to consider whether your material(s) are best suited to in-person planetarium visits or virtual ones or both. Some materials are best for virtual star show engagement, while some are better suited to in-person planetarium visits. We have prioritized giving examples of materials scaffolded to virtual shows so that anyone may use them, whether or not you have a planetarium nearby. The closer you follow the template, the easier your materials will be for others to use, but how many and what type of activities you create is  up to you. 
4. Develop your activities. Use the template linked below to design materials that align with your learning objectives and students’ proficiency level. Instructors do not need to develop all three stages to accompany the show; a single resource (e.g a vocabulary list or question prompts) can stand alone and still be helpful for others. Pre-show activities can activate background knowledge and introduce key vocabulary and concepts. During-show activities should be light and achievable in real time. Post-show activities can check comprehension and extend learning through interpersonal or presentational tasks. When possible, teachers should consider design tasks that work even if the show is being experienced live and cannot be paused or replayed.  
5. Review and edit your materials. We encourage instructors to not only proofread their own materials, but ask a colleague to peer review for them if possible. 
6. Check accessibility. We require that instructors think proactively about basic elements of document accessibility prior to their upload. We give them a short list to review, like checking color contrast and choosing legible fonts and font sizes. 
7. Prepare to upload. Before submitting, ensure everything is completed and clearly labeled so it is easy for others to navigate. Please consider using a consistent file name that includes the show title, proficiency level and activity stage, followed by a brief activity name. For example, Big Astronomy-Int-PostL-Reflecting on the Big Picture.  Once the materials are uploaded via the upload form, center personnel review the materials for clarity and basic accessibility. When the documents are ready, they are uploaded to the public-facing repository folders. 

Examples

Below are some of the examples that Sam created for the repository. 

The examples that follow are just that: examples that might be helpful when you’re building your materials or preparing your materials to upload to the repository form. Educators sharing materials to our repository only have to use our template and fill out as much information as they can on it (e.g., the name of the show, the level, which show they made materials for, etc.). There’s a lot of autonomy in the depth and length of materials. Your materials don’t have to be as specific as ours, and they don’t have to be a series that make up a whole lesson.

As a reminder, what activities educators create is up to them. Just because Sam’s materials are divided into pre-listening, listening, and post-listening doesn’t mean that (a) you need to focus only on listening and (B) if you do focus on listening, you have to create exactly the same succession that we did. Similarly, some materials are best for virtual star show engagement, while some are better suited to in-person planetarium visits. We have prioritized giving examples of materials scaffolded to virtual shows so that anyone may use them, whether or not you have a planetarium nearby.

Example 1: From Earth to the Universe  

Note: these materials are in progress and will be added to the repository when finished. 

Sam chose From Earth to the Universe because the show has rich content, strong visuals, and clear potential for language tasks built around authentic planetarium input. Planetarium shows are often available in multiple languages which makes this kind of input more broadly applicable than just to a single language show.  To keep the experience accessible for Intermediate Low to Intermediate Mid learners on the ACTFL proficiency scale, Sam treated the show as the “main text,” but adjusted the language support and task demands to match what students at this level can do successfully. Rather than asking students to process long, complex narration, Sam worked from a modified script written in shorter, clearer sentences while preserving key astronomy ideas and high-value terms. Sam also recorded teacher narration in Chinese so students could engage with level-appropriate audio while still following the authentic storyline and visuals of the show.  In this example, students engaged with the show in a classroom. They watched the show’s storyline while listening to Sam’s teacher-recorded narration. 

Before viewing, students began with visuals and short discussions to activate background knowledge and set a purpose for listening. Sam used a Picture Prediction activity (where students predict what will happen from picture cues) and a K-W-L chart (Know, Want to know, have Learned) to help students connect what they already knew about the night sky to what they are expected to learn. As the show progressed, Sam selected specific segments for focused listening tasks that students could complete in real time. For example, in the “Sun” segment, students previewed key terms with visual support (e.g., fusion, sunspots, flares, auroras), then completed listening tasks. After listening, students used sentence frames to express meaning with support, such as “The Sun is important because ____” (太阳很重要，因为____) and “In the future, the Sun will ____” (将来，太阳会____). After viewing, Sam emphasized a performance task that kept the show content central while allowing students to communicate at an appropriate proficiency level. Students worked in groups to create a poster or infographic summarizing one key idea from the show using visuals plus 5-6 key Chinese words or short sentences and presented their work.  

Example 2: Two Small Pieces of Glass 

Sam chose the show Two Small Pieces of Glass (here’s the show’s repository folder) because the visuals and storyline are highly engaging for upper elementary learners. The narrative bridge from early observation to telescopes give students a clear story to follow. At the same time, combining complex science ideas with Chinese listening input means teachers need to plan scaffolding carefully. Sam decided not to begin in the target language right away. Instead, students start with schema-building through visuals and short discussions. Then, they use the K-W-L chart to activate what students already knew and to set a clear purpose for viewing. Once that science foundation was in place; Sam adapted the language demands to fit Novice Low to Novice Mid on the ACTFL proficiency scale. At this level, students can understand and use memorized words and simple phrases with strong support. Sam avoided long narration and full-sentence production, instead focusing on a small set of high-frequency, concrete words that students could recognize during the show and reuse afterward: Earth (地球), Jupiter (木星), moon/satellite (卫星), universe (宇宙), telescope (望远镜), Galileo (伽利略), observe/observation (观测). To make the vocabulary feel real rather than abstract, Sam used a picture-walk activity (a teacher-guided preview of key images where students describe what they see and make predictions) and kept the language predictable (“What is this? This is a telescope.”). Sam then asked students to make simple predictions using a word bank (“What do you think this story will be about?”). The goal was not perfect language output, but confidence and readiness to listen. Their job was to listen for familiar words and connect them to what they were seeing. For Novice Low to Novice Mid learners, supported recognition and gist understanding are meaningful outcomes, so prioritizing key words and main ideas rather than complete comprehension is a realistic goal. After the show, students returned to the K-W-L chart to complete the L column together. Sam also asked students to draw one thing they learned (for example, a telescope or Jupiter) and label it with one or two Chinese words from the target list. Finally, Sam used a short Kahoot (an online quiz platform)with pictures (true/false and multiple-choice) as a quick and engaging comprehension check. 

Example 3: Out There (In Progress) 

Building on the Novice Low to Novice Mid design of Two Small Pieces of Glass, Sam is developing a parallel one-week sequence using Out There for a high school Intermediate Mid to Intermediate High audience to show how the same instructional framework scales up when proficiency targets change. In Out There, the entire week is organized around a single driving question (“Are we alone in the universe, and what evidence do we need to answer that question?”). Students begin by framing the driving question. Next, they examine how imagination connects to scientific evidence and learn how scientists detect exoplanets. They then apply habitability criteria and synthesize their learning into a presentational product. To maintain coherence across days, each class ends with a brief bridge note (a question or prediction) that sets up the next day’s listening focus. The structure remains stable even as the proficiency level increases, and students take on more complex evidence-based thinking. 

Authentic materials are central to the project. The show remains as the main text, and the instructional materials are being designed to help students access the planetarium experience rather than replace it. Sam preserved the show’s key ideas and astronomy vocabulary but adapted to the target proficiency level. With a consistent pre-, during-, and post-viewing structure, students will engage with real planetarium content while using the target language in supported, proficiency-appropriate ways that makes authentic input both meaningful and manageable. 

Conclusion  

This partnership project began with the intention of helping teachers integrate planetarium programming into language courses in a way that supports learning goals and student success. Across our work, one principle stayed consistent: the show remains in the central text, and the supporting materials provide a clear pathway for students to engage with it through guided preparation, focused viewing, and structured follow-up. For teachers, the project offers a reusable approach; templates, example activities, and a workflow that reduces preparation time while supporting proficiency-aligned instruction. For institutions, it offers a scalable model that can grow from a single pilot into a shared set of materials that multiple languages and courses can use. We hope readers can adapt this approach to their own contexts and build projects that make language learning more visible, more connected, and more experiential. 

Resource Links

Partnership / Repository landing page

Abrams Planetarium Star Shows Database

The Repository (public Google Drive folders)

Materials development guide for instructors

Materials development template

AI Acknowledgment: No use of AI.