NORTH HILLS : Teacher to Get Lesson in Rockets, Space

Patti Boniface is no rocket scientist.

But after she attends “Getting Comfortable Teaching With Space,” a five-day training course on incorporating space and aviation into the academic curriculum, the Plummer Elementary School teacher not only will be well-versed on rockets, the space shuttle and colonization of space, her fifth-graders next year will be, too.

“I was told they give you so much material that you have to bring an extra suitcase that’s empty to take all of it home,” said Boniface, who received a partial fellowship to attend the space camp.

Co-sponsored by the U. S. Space Foundation and the U. S. Air Force Academy, the course will be taught in three sessions throughout the summer at the academy in Colorado Springs. Participating teachers will take part in projects such as building and launching model rockets and will train as NASA astronauts do.

“One of the things the teachers really get a kick out of is this crude mock-up of a space shuttle that’s inside a swimming pool,” said Barry Grossman, public relations manager of the U. S. Space Foundation. “They experience zero gravity and run a sort of obstacle course to gain understanding of what it’s like to be in space.”

Grossman said one of the teachers who previously attended the course had her class decorate the room to look like the inside of a shuttle, and once a month, the students would wear flight suits. The students also made a space cookbook, based on what they learned about living in space.