Astronomical Investigations: Chasing the Jewel Thief at Unipampa Planetarium

Presentation theme: educational advancements in planetariums

In this presentation, I would like to talk about an interactive session that mixes a game of multiple-choice questions with a police theme, held at the Unipampa Planetarium, located in a small town in southern Brazil. As an introduction, a fictional story is presented about a skilled jewel thief who, in his escape, passes through different parts of the world. International police investigations discover that the thief is an astrophotography enthusiast and that he has a fake profile on Instagram, where he shares photos he takes of the places he passes by. Thus, the game begins with the public being invited to participate in the investigations, as astronomical experts. The role of the public is to evaluate the photos and decide, from the options given, where that photo belongs. For example, a photo of an aurora is shown with the inscription »aurora borealis«, with options being a high latitude region in the north, a high latitude region in the south, one in the region close to the line of the Tropic of Cancer and a last one in the equatorial region. When the audience gets it right, a jewel is recovered, otherwise, nothing happens, until the last question, whose correct answer results in the thief's arrest, while a mistake means that the thief is able to escape. The game addresses issues such as geographic and astronomical coordinates, diurnal movement of the sun, phases of the Moon, constellations, among others linked to Astronomy. Before voting, the public has a moment to discuss, defending different points of view in a debate conducted so that the best option is collectively chosen. Participants can vote on their smartphones, connecting to a website (without the need to install an app) and the option with the highest number of votes is considered the public's choice. After presenting the result, the planetarist explains the astronomical characteristics of the photo that would allow the correct answer to be identified, and an astronomy topic is explored in depth. The game was played at the Unipampa Planetarium, which has a 1K digital projector, with 52 chairs arranged concentrically. The application took place in two sessions, with an audience of approximately 30 people in each session. The audience was mainly made up of families with young children (between 6 and 12 years old). The results were very positive, with very fruitful and fun moments of discussion. The game contained 5 questions, and in the 1st session, the public had 100% correct answers. In the second, there was only one error, in the question about the phase of the moon.

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