First Space Flight by a Teacher : Shuttle Fever Grips Nation’s Schools

Westwood Elementary School science teacher Elaine Gervasi is scrambling to find a satellite dish to install temporarily on the playground so her students can monitor the journey of Sharon Christa McAuliffe, the first teacher to make a space flight.

But the students of Mitchell Elementary School in Canyon Country are luckier. Video Satellite Communications Co. has donated an antenna dish and a big-screen television set so they can watch the shuttle crew in action.

The antennas will give the students the ability to watch broadcasts from the space shuttle throughout the day, one of several examples of the school community’s enthusiasm over the first space flight by a teacher.

Educators say they believe that the historic flight, scheduled to begin today, is a valuable opportunity to bring first-hand experience of scientific research into the classroom.

Curriculum Package

To help promote teacher-in-space classroom activities, the Los Angeles County Office of Education has mailed to local schools 3,000 copies of a curriculum package developed by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration so teachers can integrate the mission’s activities into their regular lesson plans.

The county education office has established an electronic bulletin board so that any school with a computer and a telephone line can tap into the county’s computer system and receive reports on the trip’s progress.

And Classroom Earth, a national network of schools connected by satellite dishes, has established a “Teacher-in-Space Hotline” that students can call and, for the price of a long-distance call, get a recorded message reporting the latest developments of the mission.

On the fourth day of the flight, the Public Broadcasting Service and the Los Angeles Unified School District’s television station--KLCS, Channel 58--will feature two live broadcasts from the shuttle. The programs are scheduled to begin at 8 and 9:45 a.m.

Finding the Shuttle

NASA has also distributed hundreds of “Shuttle Prediction and Recognition Kits” and a booklet that explains to teachers that the kit “will let you and your students learn how to locate the shuttle on any of its orbits.”

“I haven’t seen this much excitement in the education community over a space flight since the man-on-the-moon flight in 1969,” said Gerald Gardner, junior and senior high school science instruction specialist for the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Once in space, McAuliffe will become a working teacher. Plans call for her to conduct at least seven experiments that will be filmed for future distribution to schools.

McAuliffe will then turn to the television cameras for the live broadcasts, which will feature her teaching two classes. During the first lesson, called “The Ultimate Field Trip,” McAuliffe will take students on a tour of the shuttle, describe the duties of the crew members and compare daily life in space to daily life on Earth.

The second lesson, “Where We’ve Been, Where We’re Going and Why,” is meant to help students understand why the United States has placed a high priority on space exploration and what technological benefits have evolved from the space program.

Los Angeles County teachers have already been given copies of McAuliffe’s lesson plans and information on how her lessons can be coordinated with local science curricula.

The flight of McAuliffe, a 38-year-old social studies teacher from Concord, N.H., is the inaugural trip of the program that NASA created to open space travel to private citizens.

More than 11,000 teachers applied for the teacher-in-space program. NASA spokesmen say that McAuliffe’s non-scientific background and her interests in American culture, history and women’s issues were points in her favor when applications for the program were reviewed.