JD Parker Elementary students transform classroom into planetarium

STUART, Fla. - Yanaiya  Walker is our tour guide through the cosmos, pointing out the different moon phases and Jupiter's Great Red Spot.

After a recent trip to the planetarium, the students and teachers at JD Parker Elementary in Stuart spent the past month turning this classroom into the JD Parker Elementary… Planetarium.  With black lights and glow in the dark galaxies, the fourth and fifth grade students are giving tours of outer space to their fellow classmates.

Fourth grader Tyler Stout was part of the group that crafted the styrofoam earth, which didn't pass muster the first time around.

"The first time we painted it, the teacher criticized it because he didn't know where the North Pole was. Then he made us redo it and now he says it looks OK," said Stout.

A 24-hundred dollar grant from the Education Foundation of Martin County allowed the kids to turn off the lights and turn on their brains.

"They're not only learning how to research, they're also learning how to orally present information," said teacher Jean Ferreira.

Kids getting to explore the final frontier, even if final exams are still a few months away.