History of Southern Skies/Cielos del Sur Program
Southern Skies/Cielos del Sur (Southern Skies) is an educational program of the Institute for the Study of the Americas (ISA) and the Morehead Planetarium and Science Center (MPSC) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. This annual program shares the important contributions of Latin American Indigenous communities’ astronomy, planetary science, and cosmology with public audiences and K-12 educators in North Carolina. Southern Skies collaborates across disciplines and international borders with astronomers, anthropologists, teachers, artists, and historians throughout the Americas.
ISA and the MPSC started their collaboration in 2020 with a vision to create a multimedia dome show featuring stories about the night sky from Indigenous Latin American communities, in Spanish and English languages. As we approach the five-year milestone of the Southern Skies’ inception, we reflect upon the cross-disciplinary teamwork that has created and sustained this educational program.The program is supported by a grant from the US Department of Education to the Consortium in Latin American and Caribbean Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Duke University.
Read more about the history of the Southern Skies program here.
Learn about our Southern Skies K-12 Educational programs including a teacher workshop, a field trip, and classroom materials here.
Reflections from Dr. Gabrielle Vail
Of all the roles I play as an academic and archaeologist, the one that is most meaningful to me is that involving giving back to the communities I work with in Latin America, and to those Latin Americans who live here in the US (in my home states of NC and FL especially).
This work is only possible through collaboration, building relationships, and the support of dozens of individuals. I’d like to take a moment to thank the many people who make it possible for me to dedicate my time to the work I do, and those who make it such a joy to do so.
First and foremost are the members of the communities I mentioned. Special appreciation goes to Concepción Poou Coy Tharin, her husband Jonathan, Ixnal Ambrocia Cuma Chávez, Ajpub’ García Ixmata, and the educators and daykeepers with Oxlajuj Aj.
Here at Carolina, it’s been a privilege—and a lot of fun!—to work with the wonderful folks at ISA and the Morehead Planetarium over the past three and a half years on the “Southern Skies” project. For the initial invitation to become involved and our subsequent collaboration, my thanks to Hannah Gill and Beatriz Riefkohl Muñiz. Working on this project with you and the other collaborators has been a dream come true!
Over the past two years, since she joined the Consortium as K-12 Outreach Coordinator, Skylar Zee and I have worked closely together to bring engaging and substantive content relating to precolonial Maya and Inka cultures and their astronomical knowledge to NC educators through workshops, classroom visits, and materials shared on the web. It’s been great to have a former teacher to run my ideas by – and someone who’s so committed and dedicated to making these projects accessible to teachers across the state. We’ve found it especially rewarding to work closely with teachers—and their students—at local area schools, including Heather Locke (Voyager Academy) and Raquel Harris (Carrboro High School), at times in collaboration with Amy Sayle of the Morehead Planetarium.
On the planetarium side, I’ve greatly enjoyed working with Richard McColman on the images for the dome, and with Amy Sayle on the script, making classroom visits to talk about star stories, and engaging with audiences at the 2023 Science for All Summit (in collaboration with Nick Eakes). Amy’s been an incredible narrator for all four of the shows and worked her magic with the dome controls to tell the story of the Hero Twins and the celestial llama Yacana. We’ve had several Spanish narrators over the years, but it’s been especially rewarding working with Javier Etchegaray. Both he and Amy have attended—and contributed substantially to—the past two workshops.
And for offstage help, I deeply appreciate the work of Joanna Shuett and the many students from ISA; my research assistants Max Mermell, Andrew Lanser, and Lizzie McGuinn, as well as Samantha Schoppe and Jeffrey Splitstoser for their contributions to the 2023 and 2024 educator workshops, including help with designing the khipu activity (Samantha) and taking on the role of Maya scribe (Andrew). Timothy Knowlton and Kleber Naula Yautibug were also instrumental in helping with questions of orthography and pronunciation, and Diego Matadamas translated the Powerpoint presentation from the 2023 workshop into Spanish. I also extend grateful thanks to my family for their tremendous support with this and my other outreach efforts, and most especially to my parents, James and Cynthia Vail; my sister, Lindsay Vail; and my husband, William (Ty) Giltinan.
There are so many others—both at Carolina and elsewhere—who’ve provided friendship, guidance, and support over the years, including Rani Alexander, Traci Ardren, Anthony Aveni, Ivan Batún, Victoria Bricker, Ashley Burke, Allen Christenson, Dylan Clark, Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld, Maia Dedrick, Bridget Gazzo, Bryan Giemza, Hannah Hawn, Christine Hernández, Biff Hollingsworth, Emilia Ismael, Donna Koren, Khristin Landry-Montes, Heather Lapham, Michelle Leahy, Matthew Looper, Martha Macri, Nelda Issa Marengo Camacho, Julie Matus, Holly Maxwell, Judith Maxwell, Tricia McAnany, Lisa-Jean Michienzi, Susan Milbrath, Hannah Palmer, Jeff Rodgers, and Angélica Torres. My heartfelt thanks to you all!
Southern Skies Contributors
Numerous people have participated in the development of Southern Skies. The Southern Skies scripts were researched and written by Hannah Gill, Amy Sayle, and Gabrielle Vail. The script was translated into Spanish by Beatriz Riefkohl Muñiz and ISA Graduate Student Assistant Andreina Malki. Narrators have included Amy Sayle (2021, 2022, 2023, 2024), Brittany Newman (2021), Lisa Marie Mercado (2022), and Javier Etchegaray (2023, 2024). Timothy Knowlton assisted with pronunciation guidance for K’iche’ words and Kleber Naula Yautibug provided guidance for pronunciation of Quechua words.
The teacher workshop activities and resources were developed with the assistance of Andrew Lanser, Samantha Schoppe, and Lindsay Vail. Andean specialist Dr. Jeffrey Splitstoser provided some helpful ideas for the 2024 khipu activity.
We also acknowledge Corin Zaragoza, Brianna Gilmore, Joanna Shuett, Miguel La Serna, Jonathan Frederick, Todd Boyette, Lou Pérez, Richard Watt, Emily Taylor, and Rosario Vila for their contributions.
The Morehead Planetarium and Science Center has helped to make the program possible as the host of the annual show. Among the many Morehead staff who have been a part of the program are Richard Watt, Guest Services Manager; Amy Sayle, Science Education Specialist; and Richard McColman, GSK Fulldome Theater Manager.
Fulldome images are selected and adapted by Richard McColman in collaboration with Dr. Gabrielle Vail.
