Rocketry
Above is Team Zvezda and our rockets.
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The video below shows the Orion Rocket - the next genration of rockets that will service the ISS and hopefully take astronauts to mars!
Left -Team Zvezda meets Ed Buckbee,Co-Author of The Real Space Cowboys, and Apollo Mission PR Officer. Right - Team Zvezda with Homer Hickman, author of the Rocket Boys. Bottom Left – Homer Hickman, Bottom Right – Rocket Boys cover jacket
“Flying model rockets is a relatively safe and inexpensive way for students to learn the basics of forces and the response of a vehicle to external forces. Like an airplane, a model rocket is subjected to the forces of weight, thrust, and aerodynamics during its flight” (NASA Model Rockets).
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For this activity at camp, each teacher built their own model rocket to launch. What a unique experience it is, as we construct these rockets to think about where the human race will go as a world community. Add to this experience the tour of the Davidson Space Center for Space Exploration, where we were greeted with a fully assembled Saturn Rocket, from the Apollo Moon landing program. Here we studied and learned about how this technology worked, the people behind it, and the vision they had for the future.
The adventure didn’t just stop here. Educators had the opportunity to meet two guest presenters this week. The first was Ed Buckbee, co-author of The Real Space Cowboys, and the Apollo Mission public relations officer. His first hand stories of the Mercury and Apollo astronauts were extraordinary. Next we meet Homer Hickman, NASA Engineer an author of the Rocket Boys. From Mr. Hickman we learned how one teacher inspired him to seek his dreams, and helped shape his future and inspired him to study rockets, and become more then what was expected of him.
These culminating experiences had a huge impact on the teachers attending this camp, and for me personally, has become a motivation to work to inspire my own students through STEM activities like these.
