Soft Launch of Earth to Moon Exhibit

A group of students from St. Michaels School were the first to experience the NASA-funded Space Sciences and Engineering Mobile Interactive Exhibit for Rural Areas: Earth to Moon exhibit during a soft opening on Wednesday, January 11, 2023, at Saint Francis University. The display built by SFU students, faculty, and staff, transformed the atrium on the ground floor of the Science Center into a learning exploration of all things moon.

The exhibit consists of a futuristic panoramic display of Earth and the Milky Way as viewed from the surface of the moon, a 3D-printed Moonscape of the Apollo 17 mission landing site, lunar meteorites, simulants of regolith (broken rock and dust), lunar images, and includes learning materials and hands-on activities.

As a portable, mobile museum, the exhibit will travel from library to library in rural communities of Central PA, enabling local youth to learn and experience great discoveries and mysteries of space. The goal of the exhibit is to be accessible to the public all the time.

It will be making its first stop at the Claysburg Area Public Library on February 1st (weather permitting). The exhibit will remain in the library and will be available to the public throughout the month of February.

After that, the display is set to make additional appearances at select library-partners of the NASA Community Anchor program through June. The exact dates of each stop are still being worked on, stay tuned for more information!

Team Members:

SFU Faculty & Staff
Dr. Lanika Ruzhitskaya – Principal Investigator, Dr. Qin He, Dr. Timothy Miller, Dr. Guochang Wang, Mr. Michael Sell

SFU Students
Jacob Garrity, Mark Koskinen, Jonah Royer, Kevin Salmon, Anna Belle Stover

Project Partners
Appalachia Intermediate Unit 8, Claysburg Education Foundation, Claysburg Area Public Library, Hollidaysburg Area Public Library, Patton Public Library, Portage Public Library

Soft Launch in the News

PHOTO GALLERY | University takes kids to the moon with ‘really cool’ exhibit

PHOTO GALLERY | St. Francis University launches 'really cool' NASA-funded Earth to Moon exhibit

St. Francis University unveils NASA-funded moon exhibit

Out of this world