Discovery

A Journey Into Space

Ian Falconer

My principal walked into my Electronics Elective class with a grin and a fax. "Congratulations", he said, shook my hand and walked out, leaving me to read the fax to see what I had won. The fax was from Peter Spratt of the Royal Society of New Zealand and it said:

I am very pleased to be able to congratulate you on being selected to attend the space camp at Huntsville, Alabama, on 30 July 1994.

And so began my adventure into the world of astronaut training, space travel, space stations, rocket engines, simulators, satellites, and ground truthing.

I quickly found out that Space Camp, at the US Space and Rocket Centre in Huntsville, is the leading hands-on space science museum in the United States. It is a non-profit educational organisation supported by NASA and empowered by the US Congress. Since 1982 the centre has fostered national and international education in space science and technology through its various programmes which immerse students in a high technology environment and motivate them toward greater achievements in maths and science.

For one week of the year, the centre holds a special programme called "International Space Camp" to which are invited one teacher and two students from 25 different countries, plus the 50 "Teachers of the Year" from the United States. Selection of the New Zealand representatives is carried out by the Royal Society of New Zealand, based on applications submitted in March each year. All accommodation and tuition fees are paid for by the centre, but air fares have to be paid for by the participants. (The board, staff and parents of Reporoa College contributed a major portion of my fares.)

And so, on 28 July, I found myself heading towards Los Angeles and Atlanta in the company of two delightful 6th form students, Dane Kent from Tauranga and Katie Passmore from Alexandra. Our first full day in the US was mainly sight-seeing by bus, visiting a Coca-Cola factory and the CNN studios in Atlanta, then on to Chattanooga to see an impressive aquarium, arriving in Huntsville in the evening. The teachers were separated from the students at this time, and they had their own exciting programme for the week.

Every day started at 6am and finished about 9pm and included:

• hot air balloon rides
• building and flying model rockets and hot air balloons
• demonstrations on using hydroponics in the classroom
• flying instruction in four-seater training aircraft
• simulated shuttle missions in very realistic simulators

We also had lectures on rocketry, astronomy, space history, current and future space ventures, as well as lectures and slides from several US and Russian astronauts, and from German scientists who came to America in 1945 with rocketry pioneer Dr Werner Von Braun.

We visited the Marshall Space Flight Centre to see astronaut training programmes in action and attended a NASA debriefing session with the seven astronauts who had just returned from a shuttle mission.

We were given a huge quantity of resources to use in the classroom, and more was available for purchase. I broke a handle on my suitcase trying to lift it all at one of the airports! There is a wide range of manuals, pamphlets, posters and videos, together with model rocket kitsets, hydroponic kits and classroom activity sheets. My ongoing contact with other international teachers has already lead to an exchange of unit plans for teaching "space" in the classroom.

The resources include detailed information about the history of flight and space travel, space suits, rocket engineer, crew systems, science in space, the Apollo programme, space exploration, astronomy, the Hubble telescope, shuttle missions and environmental issues. These would seem ideal contexts in which to cover Achievement Objectives 3 and 4 in "Planet Earth and Beyond" in the new curriculum, as well as touching on many of the technology objectives.

A highlight for me was getting to know some of the "Teachers of the Year". They came from all teaching backgrounds and were passionately consumed with providing the very best education for their students. I hope some of their enthusiasm has rubbed off on me. The resources and information supplied by the Space Camp administrators will be invaluable to me and my colleagues as we teach "Planet Earth and Beyond".

I encourage science teachers in New Zealand to apply for International Space Camp in future years -- it will change your life!

Ian Falconer is a former engineer who now teaches Science and Computer Studies at Reporoa College.