In November of 2023, Neil Armstrong Planetarium director James Krug began organizing his yearly evening winter adult course. For $60, over 50 adult learners attended the nine-week course. Topics ranged from night sky studies to UFOs.
The eighth year of the adult course began officially in January. It will conclude in the first half of March. The program focuses on providing a space for people who are interested in astronomy and UFOs to interact with this subject matter in a way that is not commonly available to most adults.
“Obviously, for high school students, there’s a ton of enrichment opportunities,” Krug said. “You get to college, and there’s a ton of ways you can go. You sort of get out of that and, especially for older people, there’s just not a lot to do. A lot of people say it’s the highlight of their week.”
Teaching adults has its own set of challenges that Krug was not initially prepared for. He was expecting a fresh group of people each course, but was surprised to learn that many return to the course year after year.
“I have made some legit friends from the course,” Krug said. “Some people have actually donated some really nice things to the Space Race museum. However, the big challenge is that I need to make new things every single year from scratch, and that’s not what I was expecting when I started this course.”
Additionally, Krug does not actually receive any extra profit from running this course. All of the proceeds from this event go straight to the budget for the astronomy club and other planetarium activities.
Another challenge with the course is the amount already on Krug’s plate. Directing the astronomy club, the Mountain Lion Observatory at Fort Roberdeau, the Space Race Museum with Mr. Lowe, running public sky shows in the planetarium and, of course, teaching his astronomy students leads to a lot of extra pressure on top of the nine-week course. There are a number of other responsibilities that he manages at the planetarium, and none of these factor in his four kids at home.
“I’m honestly not sure how I’m managing all of this stuff at this point,” Krug said. “Everything I have done has been successful, but the problem is I would rather do three things 100 percent than six things 50 percent.”
All of this means that the future of these adult courses might be limited. Currently, Krug only plans to run one more adult course titled “The Golden Age of Conspiracies” that will focus on a number of conspiracy theories.
“My husband and I took the class together,” English teacher Amy Martin said. “We enjoyed trying new neighborhood places to grab a quick bite to eat before class and then learning about the stars. I loved that Mr. Krug treated us as both adults and students. I’ve had the privilege to work collaboratively with him with students occasionally and was thrilled that he carried those same techniques into our adult class: repeating the star names and filling in star charts, Yes! We were all in. Although we enjoyed the sky shows, my favorite parts were when Mr. Krug would teach us about the night sky. It was such a great learning experience.”
