On May 20 and June 17 2011, at events hosted by Caroline Steele (BFA, Concordia University) and Alexandra Aubé (BSc, University of Montreal) the 3rd grade students of the class of Ms.Paula Shuster at FACE School and Ms.Nathalie Ricard School-Paul Bruchési of Montreal have imagined traveling through the 1300 million kilometers that distance the Earth from Saturn.

Through a play written by Caroline with scientific facts explained by Alexandra and in which all students participated, students discovered the centrifugal and centripetal forces, the composition of Saturn and its largest moon Titan as well as the rings of this impressive planet. Indeed, wanting to go to Saturn for a picnic, the chef of the crew was very disappointed to learn that Saturn was made only of hydrogen and helium, two gases that we also find on Earth. Instead, they landed on the moon Titan, where the soil is made of rock and ice but where the temperature is -179 ° C! Meeting the wicked inhabitants of Titan, the crew had to flee. They crossed the 70,000 km of rock and ice that make up Saturn’s rings to take refuge. There, the members of the crew felt very heavy, it was because of the gravitational force, which was much greater since Saturn has nine times the size of the Earth. They also met the Queen of Saturn who offered them to dance to the Saturnian way. The characters rotated a balloon that contained a coin; by rotating the balloon, the coin was subjected to centrifugal force and rolled on the sides of the balloon creating a strange music. The crew then left the planet that Galileo Galilei sighted for the first time in 1610.

After the play, Alexandra went on to answer scientific questions that this act aroused in their minds.

It was through an adventurous and comic odyssey that the molecules of life team had students travel in the space between art and science!

You can access the play from this link: Saturn Odyssey