Students at Valeska Hinton Learning Center enjoy the Peoria Riverfront Museum’s Mobile Planetarium

PEORIA, Ill. (WMBD) — The Peoria Riverfront Museum is able to teach children about the planets, stars sun and moon . . . on the go.

Thanks to a partnership with PNC Bank, the museum is traveling around central Illinois and showing schools its Mobile Planetarium.

The Mobile Planetarium is more than 13 feet tall and can fit up to 40 kids inside it's inflatable bubble.

On Tuesday morning, students at Valeska Hinton Learning Center in Peoria had a chance to view an educational solar system showing put on by Big Bird and Elmo. This ties in with the Jim Henson exhibit happening now at the Riverfront Museum.

Steve Rae, the museum's senior planetarium educator, said the Mobile Planetarium is a great learning resource for any kids and/or families.

"Sometimes it's much easier if the content comes to you than having to arrange a field trip and get busses and find a time when you can get to the museum," he said. "It's a wonderful free resource for these young kids to get to explore outer space without having to make a trip to the museum."

Rae also said the environment of the Mobile Planetarium is unique in its own way.

"Even though the museum is wonderful, this has a really different feeling," he said. "It's like you're camping out in space inside this weird space bubble. So it's just a cool special environment."

The opportunity to bring the Mobile Planetarium to schools in the area is thanks to PNC Bank's " Grow Up Great " initiative. The multi-million dollar program finds and offers new and engaging ways to learn.