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GLENVILLE — Preschool through 12th-grade students at Glenville-Emmons on Tuesday got the opportunity to explore the universe without having to leave the school building.

This was possible because of the Bell Museum’s ExploraDome, a traveling planetarium. The Bell Museum, located on the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus, sends the ExploraDome throughout the state to visit schools and community events.

Maria Olson, ExploraDome coordinator and educator, has been doing tours of the solar system for almost three years. Her favorite part, she said, is the travel and portability aspect of the ExloraDome.

“It’s really cool because it’s nice to be able to bring a field trip experience to schools instead of them having to get on a bus, drive a couple hours to a museum and do it that way,” Olson said. “It’s nice to be able to bring it to their school, and have kids just leave their classroom, come into the gym, see a cool presentation and then go back to their regular day.”

The dome’s presentations, she said, mainly focus on what students can observe in their night sky. This includes constellations during different seasons, phases of the moon and other topics.

Olson added the presentation goes more in-depth for older students. In addition to learning about other planets, they also learn about occurrences outside the galaxy.

“We talk about different planets and what characteristics make them special, where we might find life in our solar system other than Earth,” Olson said. “We kind of dive into those deeper, more complex topics for the older kids.”

The original plan was for the ExploraDome to be at the Glenville-Emmons Elementary School all day Tuesday and Wednesday morning. However, due to weather concerns, the time was shortened to just Tuesday.

More information on the ExploraDome can be found at bellmuseum.umn.edu/exploradome.