Miss-Delectable
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The Frederick News-Post Online - Frederick County Maryland Daily Newspaper
Children shrieked with delight Tuesday as lights dimmed and stars exploded onto the ceiling of Frederick County Public Schools' Earth & Space Science Laboratory at Lincoln Elementary.
The 13 second-graders from Maryland School for the Deaf may not have realized it, but they were making history at the laboratory. They were in the first large group of deaf visitors to attend a planetarium show since the lab's new captioning system was unveiled last year. A $9,700 grant from the Alcoa Foundation bought the system and paid for installation.
Some deaf individuals have seen the captioning system during public evening shows, but Tuesday was the first time a class benefited, he said. The system features a museum-quality board directly below the horizon line; whatever is spoken flashes across the screen as text.
While preprogrammed text can be displayed, the system also has a voice recognition system. Mark Bowman, co-director of the lab, spent several months reading into the machine so it could recognize his speech patterns and translate his words into written text.
It's not 100 percent accurate -- "hopefully" was displayed as "whole fillet" and "raise your hand" came out as "Frazier hand" -- but most of his comments displayed word-for-word on the screen in nearly the same amount of time it took him to say them.
Tuesday's showing got off to a rocky start with Bowman stopping the taped program several times to align the text with the audio track.
Once it got going, the children were entranced. When they learned that all stars will eventually die, a little girl hollered a bewildered, "Why?"
When Bowman asked who could spot the moon, 13 hands immediately pointed toward the glowing spot on the screen.
Although the captioning system displayed text throughout most of the presentation, an American Sign Language interpreter was also there. She stood under a red light so the children could see her hands and face in the dark.
Since English is the children's second language -- ASL is their first -- and they are young readers, they might not have enjoyed or understood everything with only the captioning system, Bowman said.
"We're still learning what works," he said.
He hopes to have more chances to find out. The laboratory and MSD are embarking on a new partnership. In the past, MSD students typically came to the lab only once, either in second or fourth grade. Now students will come every year from first through fifth-grade as they do in the county's public schools. MSD follows FCPS' curriculum.
The lab features hands-on displays and lessons for a variety of topics, as well as the planetarium shows. Students learn about meteorology in first grade. Oceanography is covered in third grade and geology in fifth. Although astronomy is covered only in second and fourth grade, Bowman said he tries to incorporate the planetarium theater into all the lessons.
Every class leaves through a dark corridor where black lights illuminate replicas of various constellations. Children -- and adults -- love that corridor, he said.
Tuesday's visitors loved more than that.
When asked to explain what interested her the most, 7-year-old Kaitlyn Weeks hollered, "Everything."
Kaela Luttrell, also 7, said she definitely wanted to come back to see the stars in space again. Many of her classmates nodded in agreement.
Children shrieked with delight Tuesday as lights dimmed and stars exploded onto the ceiling of Frederick County Public Schools' Earth & Space Science Laboratory at Lincoln Elementary.
The 13 second-graders from Maryland School for the Deaf may not have realized it, but they were making history at the laboratory. They were in the first large group of deaf visitors to attend a planetarium show since the lab's new captioning system was unveiled last year. A $9,700 grant from the Alcoa Foundation bought the system and paid for installation.
Some deaf individuals have seen the captioning system during public evening shows, but Tuesday was the first time a class benefited, he said. The system features a museum-quality board directly below the horizon line; whatever is spoken flashes across the screen as text.
While preprogrammed text can be displayed, the system also has a voice recognition system. Mark Bowman, co-director of the lab, spent several months reading into the machine so it could recognize his speech patterns and translate his words into written text.
It's not 100 percent accurate -- "hopefully" was displayed as "whole fillet" and "raise your hand" came out as "Frazier hand" -- but most of his comments displayed word-for-word on the screen in nearly the same amount of time it took him to say them.
Tuesday's showing got off to a rocky start with Bowman stopping the taped program several times to align the text with the audio track.
Once it got going, the children were entranced. When they learned that all stars will eventually die, a little girl hollered a bewildered, "Why?"
When Bowman asked who could spot the moon, 13 hands immediately pointed toward the glowing spot on the screen.
Although the captioning system displayed text throughout most of the presentation, an American Sign Language interpreter was also there. She stood under a red light so the children could see her hands and face in the dark.
Since English is the children's second language -- ASL is their first -- and they are young readers, they might not have enjoyed or understood everything with only the captioning system, Bowman said.
"We're still learning what works," he said.
He hopes to have more chances to find out. The laboratory and MSD are embarking on a new partnership. In the past, MSD students typically came to the lab only once, either in second or fourth grade. Now students will come every year from first through fifth-grade as they do in the county's public schools. MSD follows FCPS' curriculum.
The lab features hands-on displays and lessons for a variety of topics, as well as the planetarium shows. Students learn about meteorology in first grade. Oceanography is covered in third grade and geology in fifth. Although astronomy is covered only in second and fourth grade, Bowman said he tries to incorporate the planetarium theater into all the lessons.
Every class leaves through a dark corridor where black lights illuminate replicas of various constellations. Children -- and adults -- love that corridor, he said.
Tuesday's visitors loved more than that.
When asked to explain what interested her the most, 7-year-old Kaitlyn Weeks hollered, "Everything."
Kaela Luttrell, also 7, said she definitely wanted to come back to see the stars in space again. Many of her classmates nodded in agreement.