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UNCG Home > School of Health & Human Sciences

Patsy Kerr Wilson: Inspiring Kids to Reach for the Stars

By Karen M. Alley

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Patsy Kerr Wilson has a classroom that would make most teachers green with envy. Although she spends a lot of her day in the dark, it is a beautiful darkness full of twinkling stars, planets and galaxies. Patsy's classroom is the Margaret C. Woodson Planetarium, one of the many hands-on educational opportunities at Horizons Unlimited in Salisbury, North Carolina. As one of the few exploration based learning centers in the country that is owned and operated by a school system, children from Rowan County-Salisbury Schools get a unique opportunity to experience a variety of subjects from North Carolina Indian history and culture to natural sciences, and of course, astronomy and space exploration.

"I have always had a love for space, growing up with the beginnings of our space program," Patsy said. "I love being able to continue to study the subject and work as an ambassador for NASA. Bringing this knowledge to the children and making a connection with them is part of what makes this job rewarding."

When Patsy graduated from UNCG in 1973 with a degree in consumer economics, she had no idea that her career would lead her to where it is today. She had hoped to follow the typical path of other consumer economics majors, working for Duke Energy educating the public on all facets of home management, from food and nutrition to making a budget. But the jobs just weren't available, and Patsy found herself going back to school to get her teaching certificate.

After seven years in the classroom and a hiatus to raise her two daughters, Patsy decided to go back to teaching, but again was faced with a dearth of jobs. While investigating the library science program at UNCG Patsy was approached by the school system for a position at Horizons Unlimited, which she saw as a great opportunity. Originally hired for the health program, Patsy also did some substitute work at the planetarium and eventually took over that area as her full-time subject.

Today Patsy's days are kept full with a wide range of activities, all involving keeping the planetarium and its shows up to date and helping bring this great resource to as many people as possible.

Of course, one of the main purposes of Horizons Unlimited is to educate children in the Rowan County-Salisbury School System, which means that local classes are continually coming through the planetarium on field trips. Patsy prepares these programs based on the state's standard course of study. Each year she will prepare a show for each grade level, which gives her a basic foundation of programs.

On top of that, Patsy also finds herself writing many other shows for different audiences. The planetarium is available to other groups in the community, from Girl and Boy Scouts to home schooled children. When one of these groups schedules a trip to the planetarium Patsy will create a program geared to what they want to see. For example, when a computer camp that was studying the earth and recycling came through, Patsy wrote a show that talked about the uniqueness of earth in relation to other planets, why it's inhabitable, and some of the environmental issues we are experiencing such as light pollution. Thanks to a new grant-funded directive, the planetarium is also open to the public one weekend a month, which of course means yet another program that Patsy plans.

Patsy's job is obviously more writing-intensive than most classroom teaching positions, and part of that came with an equipment upgrade in 2006. Thanks to a grant from the Woodson and Robertson foundations the center upgraded to all-digital equipment. While the equipment upgrade made all of Patsy's library of shows obsolete, it has brought many new wonderful opportunities. Now she is able to pull current images from NASA off the internet and share them with the kids, as well as splice information from a variety of DVDs and videos to enhance her programs. "One of the things I love about this job is working with all the technology, and last year's upgrade was amazing," Patsy said. "I enjoy doing the research and then learning how to program the shows."

In order to continue bringing quality programs to the public, Patsy plays an instrumental part in the center's grant writing. "We are funded by the school boards of Rowan and Davie counties, but grants are what fund any supplemental programming, in addition to the Woodson grant which pays for equipment maintenance, upgrades and enhancements each year." Recently she wrote a grant that will help fund public programs designed specifically for groups that aren't able to attend on the open Saturdays, including the Hispanic population and mentally challenged adults.

Patsy's reach extends beyond the classroom in other ways as well. Each year she oversees the judging of Rowan County's science fair projects and hosts the regional science fair at Horizons. And recently Patsy took over the task of organizing a special summer trip to Space Camp in Huntsville, AL. Formerly a classroom teacher had been organizing the trip and invited Patsy to come along, but when the other teacher decided to back off from the project, Patsy found it was a natural fit for her to step in and take over. Every other summer buses full of fourth through eighth graders and their chaperones travel to Alabama for an adventure of a lifetime.

In the planetarium world, Patsy is a rarity. She attends conferences alongside PhD and full-time astronomers, but that's just par for the course for Patsy. "My education at UNCG was invaluable to my career. I learned to utilize what resources you're given to make things work," Patsy said. Combined with her classroom experience where she learned to interact with an audience and engage them in learning, Patsy's background turned out to be just perfect for the place where her career led.

"I have the enviable position of being a teacher who doesn't have to hook their kids," Patsy said. "When they walk through those doors they're immediately ready to learn." And thanks to the generosity of the Rowan County-Salisbury School System and various grants, Patsy's enthusiastic teaching will continue for years to come.

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