Planetarium programs reach students and teachers (formal education) and the general public through school, science center, and museum planetaria (informal education). Kepler EPO has produced an audience participation planetarium show and some planetarium show producers have produced shows that feature the NASA Kepler mission in various ways.

SHOWS:

• Extreme Planets by Clark Planetarium Productions is a 31 minute fulldome show about exoplanets, planet-finding, and concludes with a discussion of the Kepler mission.
  
  
• Undiscovered Worlds: The Search Beyond Our Sun at the Boston Museum of Science, offered as public show and school program. This show has an accompanying educators' guide. As of Oct 2011, a preview of the show can be seen at a distributor's website: Sky-Skan. The part about Kepler is a couple of minutes long, about 25 minutes in (about 7 minutes from the end).
  
  
• Strange Planets is the show produced by the Kepler mission EPO through the Lawrence Hall of Science (LHS) Planetarium and is part of a series of shows called Planetarium Activities for Student Success (PASS) optimized for group sizes of 25 to 70 people that engage the visitors directly in activities and demonstrations. Show content includes general planet-finding techniques (Doppler, astrometric, etc.), an audience activity about the transit method of extrasolar planet discovery, NASA Kepler mission, and Johannes Kepler's work. The content of the program supports the National Science Education Standards (NSES), especially those related to “Earth and Space Science,” “History and Nature of Science,” and “Science and Technology.” PASS is now distributed as Interact! PASS Classic by Sky-Skan Inc. As of January 2010, the show was distributed to about 65 planetariums. Materials developed for the program are available for video products, broadcast type science programs, and other planetaria that produce their own programs on the search for extrasolar planets for special emphasis on Kepler. The show script and media (still images, movies, animations, music) are available for free at the Strange Planets download page.

Development of the Strange Planets show was in collaboration with planetarium staff at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, WA. Kepler team members conducted workshops at planetarium conferences to get a variety of planetarium staff input to define the program and best suit the needs of the planetarium community.

Program information is also shared via papers and sessions at regional planetarium meetings and at the International Planetarium Society (IPS) meeting.

A demonstration of the Kepler LEGO Orrery by Ruth Craft of Kennedy High School planetarium can be seen on a PBS TV program called Outdoor Elements (segment #3 of "Far Out! Telescopes"—Episode #1003— http://www.wnit.org/outdoorelements/1000/1003/1003.html.

Expect show revisions in 2010-2012, reflecting the discoveries made by the Kepler team during the first 4 years of observations with particular attention to the discovery of how many terrestrial-sized planets in habitable zones exist elsewhere in the universe. 

The planetarium programs can go with the NSF-funded Alien Earths exhibit developed by SSI.

The video products seen on the Kepler website Media area benefits the general public and families, schools/colleges, and broadcast television.

Evaluation: Front-end, formative, and summative evaluation for planetarium programs and broadcast video are coordinated by LHS Research, Evaluation, and Assessment (REA) team with cooperation from the partner institutions.