Taivo Productions Ltd is a family company specializing in science communications based in Ivalo, Finnish Lapland. We do business in the whole Northern Lapland and occasionally tours to Southern Finland too. The company was started in late 2020.
Taivo means “sky” in the old Finnish language, the word is found for example in the National Epic of Kalevala.
Mikko Suominen is science journalist and communicator, who has 18 years of experience in the field.
As science journalist he specialices in Space Engineering, but writes much also about Astronomy and Amateur Astronomy. He has mainly written for Finnish Tähdet ja avaruus [Stars and Space] popular astronomy magazine, which is the largest in its field in the Nordic countries.
He has studied Engineering Physics in Tampere University of Technology and also made pedagogical studies in the University of Tampere. He also attended SSP course in International Space University in 2003. He has taught Space Engineering course for four years in Tampere University of Technology and held several courses related to amateur astronomy.
During his study years he took part in several of European Space Agency’s student projects, including Parabolic Flight Campaign, Ariane 5 launch trip and Rexus sounding rocket campaign.
He has been active in several voluntary freetime communities and their boards, including Finnish Association for Science Editors and Journalists, Astronomical Association Ursa and Finnish Astronomical Society. He has been an amateur astronomer for more than 25 years.
He loves Lapland’s nature and has hiked and lead hiking trips in summer and winter during last 15 years, mainly with Finnish hiking association Tunturilatu.
For planetarium work our teacher and mentor is Arvo “Arkki” Kuusela, who spent more than 20 years touring with his planetarium in Finland, teaching school children of all age groups.
Teaching in planetarium requires a lot of skill and knowledge in order to make the experience enjoyable and personal, no matter what kind of equipment is used.
Too often nowadays so called “planetarium” is in practice only a wide screen movie theater without interaction or possibilities of making a personal experience.
We are continue Arkki’s work on the field of planetarium shows learning from his lessons and adding new fields to it.
