The latest local news, weather and high school sports from the Heartland

OTTUM;WA, IOWA -- Students at James Elementary were treated to a day discovering the wonders of the universe.

The Science Center of Iowa brought their portable planetarium for kids to explore, and they also got to see how toys they play with every day work in space, with no gravity.

The entire day, titled "The Amazing Solar System" was planned by two second-graders in James' Talented and Gifted program.

"They wanted to share with their whole school some awesome things about space," said Ann Youngman, teacher in the Talented and Gifted program. "And so today, we're using toys that they actually carried up in space, showing the differentiation of how they are done on earth and what they do in space."

Lorna Bauer and Trin Eidahl gave a presentation on the planets to their classmates, and then talked to Dr. Joseph Lazio, a radio astronomer currently in Hawaii, via a Skype call to answer their questions.

So how did planning for the day begin?

"They came up with it on their own - they told me they wanted to study about planets, because we do work outside of the regular curriculum, and when we were working, all of a sudden, when we started talking to Dr. Joseph Lazio, then they wanted to share it with the whole school and we were very blessed that Miss Sievertsen, the principal, said that we could," Youngman said.

The day culminated in bottle rockets launched outside the school.