MAPS Conference 2022 – Orono, ME

Versant Power Astronomy Center & Jordan Planetarium would like to invite you, MAPS friends and colleagues, to join us from May 18 – 21, 2022 here in beautiful Orono, Maine for the 2022 conference. The gathering is a great time for MAPS Members to re-connect, brainstorm ideas for education programming, and share with each other the wonderful things that we are doing in our domes! This year will be very special as we gather in-person for the first time since 2018.

Since 1954, the Jordan Planetarium has served inspiring visitors to explore the universe and our home planet Earth. Being part of the University of Maine connects us to numerous resources including our internationally recognized Climate Change Institute (https://climatechange.umaine.edu/).

The theme of this year’s conference is one of professional development as we dive into “Dome Visualization and Climate Change.” We all use visualization to share science, arts, culture and more in our domes. As part of our time together we will dive into open-source tools such as OpenSpace and World Wide Telescope, explore best practices in visualization, and get updates on resources from NASA available for our community. Planetariums, both large and small, allow us to explore the universe, and part of that is our home planet Earth. Climate Change is affecting our world and our own backyards in unprecedented ways. As planetarians we have unique capabilities to inform our communities and strive to preserve our planet. Working with our planetarium audiences. We encourage our workshops, lessons, papers, posters, and panels to celebrate the multidisciplinary approach we all take to fulfill the missions of our various organizations.

We hope that, in addition to attending our conference, you will consider submitting a proposal to present a talk, lesson, workshop, poster, or panel discussion. Attendees also can choose to earn one Continuing Education credit from the University of Maine. To do so, participants will need to submit a 2-page report to the MAPS Board. More information can be found here: https://mapsplanetarium.org/maps-2022-continuing-education-unit-ceu/

Continuing a long-standing MAPS tradition, our annual banquet will be highlighted by the Margaret Noble Address. This year’s address will be given by Steve Fentress from Strasenburgh Planetarium/Rochester Museum & Science Center.

Saturday we will finish our conference with a visit to the Maine Mineral and Gem Museum in Bethel, Maine (https://mainemineralmuseum.org/). This new facility has one of the largest collections of meteorites in the United States, including the largest piece of Mars on Earth, several lunar meteorites, and ones from Vesta and other asteroids. Participants will have a unique chance to handle these meteorites in a special presentation there. As Bethel is south of Orono, one may choose to depart from the museum directly or travel back to Orono if flying out of Bangor. We expect to be back in Orono by 3 or 3:30pm for planning purposes.

We are pleased to announce that, with the generous support of numerous sponsors, we will be able to maintain the low registration costs from past MAPS conferences. The full registration is $195 if paid by March 15th. We hope to see you all here in Orono at the end of May!

Your MAPS Executive Board

and

Shawn Laatsch, Director

Versant Power Astronomy Center & Jordan Planetarium

University of Maine

Conference Host

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COVID Protocols: Per University of Maine policy all visitors must wear a mask covering the nose and mouth while inside buildings on campus. Additionally MAPS will be utilizing CrowdPass for vaccine verification or for providing a negative COVID test 24 hours prior to the conference.