“Guess what, class?”  Mrs. Higglemeister waved everyone to silence.  “I’d like us to welcome Katie back today. She’s able to join us from home until she can return to school and you can see she’s in her desk as if she was here.”

Fourteen sets of eyes turned towards Katie’s seat, which had been empty for seven long weeks.  The telepresence robot raised a small hand and waved.  It wasn’t super-realistic, but had been modified to Katie’s skin tone and was wearing a synthetic wig approximating her hair color.  It wasn’t Katie, but it was close enough for the kids in her class.

Everyone returned the wave.  At home, Katie lay on her back with a special set of gloves on her hands, and a helmet across her face.  Still weakened from her illness, she couldn’t support the weight of a helmet, so they had a special dome that lay across the top of her head, sensing her head movement and directing the telepresence robot in response.

Mrs. Higglemeister motioned again to get all eyes forward.  She touched the board at the front of the classroom and the planet Earth, the first part of today’s lesson, appeared on the board as the lights dimmed.  It spun twice, centered and tilted to bring North America into view.  “Illuminate the school,” Mrs. H, as the kids preferred, triggered a small red flag to life.  It blinked a few times before settling into a slow pulse.  Around the flag, a few locations blinked to provide context.  From this, we discover the school is in Pennsylvania, just north of Pittsburgh.

Mrs. H stepped back to look at it with the class.  The globe expanded until it was nearly a meter tall.  The teacher turned to her class, “Any questions?”

“Mrs. H, why is the left side black?”

The teacher held her hand up, finger pads towards the screen.  Moving them slowly to the right, the globe spun until the dot was hanging off the side of the sphere.  “As we discussed, the sun only illuminates half the Earth at a time.  It’s 9:18 at our school in our time zone.  So the red dot is in the lit area of the globe.  If we look at Alaska, which is part of the United States, you can see the western end of the state is just starting to see the dawn.  California is completely lit at this point, meaning they are experiencing dawn and some may be seeing the sun just above the horizon.

“Question: are Alaska and California in the same time zone?”

A chorus of ‘yes’ and ‘no’ came from the students, with more yeses than nos.  

“Show time zones.”  Lines and colored overlays appeared on the map.  It showed the west coast outlined in light blue and Alaska in a light purple.  “No, they are in different time zones.  California is 3 hours earlier and Alaska is 4 hours earlier than we are.  If it’s 9:19 here, what time is it in California?  Stacy?”

“9 minus 3 is 6.  So, it’s six o’clock.”

Several students sounded off with, “No.”  Stacy caught herself and corrected her answer, “6:19.  Now 20.”

“Yes,” Mrs. H turned back to point at the globe.  “What about Alaska?  Anthony?”

A little boy straightened in his desk and looked about with big eyes.  “Um….5:20.”

“Very good.”

Katie’s chair let out a giggle and yelled, “Puddles!  No!”  And giggled again.

The other children laughed with her.  At home, Katie pushed the dome up and waved her dog off from licking her toes.  “No, Puddles.  Go away.  Mom!”

They took a moment while Katie’s mother fetched the dog and shut the door.  Class settled down and Mrs. H continued, “To answer your question, the area of the globe that is black is the dark side of our planet, the side where sunlight is not falling.”  Mrs. H stepped to the side of the classroom, “Sun view.”  The Earth scaled back down, rotating to half the planet being lit and half in the shade.  With a wave of her hand, the planet shifted to the left and a blazing orange sun entered the screen at the right side.

“Katie, looking at the screen, which way is the planet rotating?”

The robot’s speaker channeled her answer, “To the right.”