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Argus Makes Gift: New High School Gets $10,000 Planetarium

Argus Makes Gift: New High School Gets $10,000 Planetarium image
Parent Issue
Day
10
Month
November
Year
1955
Copyright
Copyright Protected
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Donated by the Ann Arbor News. © The Ann Arbor News.
OCR Text

A GIFT FROM ARGUS CAMERAS: This is the control panel unit of a $10,000 planetarium which was given to the Ann Arbor Public Schools last night by Argus Cameras, Inc., of Ann Arbor. The planetarium will be installed in the new high school and used as an educational aid of students and for use by the community.

Argus Makes Gift:

New High School Gets $10,000 Planetarium

A complete planetarium installation for the new high school on Stadium Blvd. was accepted last night by the Board of Education.

The planetarium, a $10,000 gift from Argus Cameras, Inc., projects all the stars visible under normal conditions onto a plastic

The new $6,500,000-plus high school is the first one in Michigan to incorporate initially into a school structure a planetarium, which is expected to be used widely by the public schools, University and community groups in the study of astronomy and other subjects.

School officials declared that the gift "is a reflection of the public-spirited attitude of one of our community’s leading industries."

Is Teaching Aid

"This is an educational device which is a splendid teaching aid and a stimulus to greater interest in a field of science which has enjoyed a rapid and universal growth in popularity among all educational levels,’’ officials said in a resolution.

“We believe that this will combine a forward step in public and community relations with an advancement in our high school curriculum.”

Robert E. Lewis, president of Argus, said he thought the gift "would be one concrete way of showing Argus’ appreciation of Ann Arbor.”

"I and my associates at Argus desired to do something for the community in which the company operates and in which it has registered its substantial growth in recent years,” Lewis said.

Will Seat 60

The new planetarium will provide seating for 60 persons. It is manufactured and will be installed by next February or March by Spitz Laboratories of Elkton, Md., in a specially built room designed for planetarium use.

Simple controls make it possible to show the stars and lunar and solar systems as seen anywhere from the North Pole to within the Southern Hemisphere.

It can project the positions of stars and planets as they were at any period last year or as they will appear months in the future.

Besides being a teaching aid in astronomy, it will aid in the study of geography, mathematics, navigation and establish how early philosophical determinations helped in the development of men's ideas.1

U-M May Use It

Principal Nicholas Schreiber of Ann Arbor High said the University had expressed an interest in using the planetarium as an aid in pure research.

Observers will sit beneath the 24-foot dome, which is 18 1/2 feet high, to make observations.

It is anticipated by Schreiber that the planetarium will be used by the adult education department. A detailed schedule will be worked out for the planetarium’s use at a later date.