Thursday, June 28th, 2012
8:00am - 9:00am
All of our Thursday professional development work was done with Mr. Angelo Casaburri, a NASA Aerospace Educational Specialist. Mr. Casaburri knows 'a little bit about everything' and was happy to share his knowledge with us. He was also extremely comedic, and kept us engaged and interested throughout the day.
For the first hour, we focused on a lesson called Rockets Educator Guide, in which we built foam rockets. This guide is extremely useful, with many activities to teach about rockets, history about rockets, and wonderful graphics. It is also important to note that all of NASA Curriculum Material is public domain, which means the link above was made for YOU to use in your classroom, for free.
Activity - Foam Rocket:
The activity that we started with from this guide was the creation of a foam rocket, made from polyurethane foam (found at any home improvement stores in the plumbing section... very cheap. I have used this same foam as a cheap base for wreaths!)
The rocket we created is based off of the finger rocket found in toy stores and museum gift shops all over the world:
The foam rocket was extremely easy to make. Basically, each student receives a rocket body of 12" of polyurethane foam, a template for the fins, a rubber band, and duct tape. The student cuts out the fins, slides them into slots in the foam (which they must cut), and support it with tape. They also must duct tape the rubber band to the end using duct tape.
To incorporate mathematics into the project, students use their rockets to measure the angle at which they launch the rocket compared to the distance the rocket flies. The data is collected in a data sheet (which is included in the packet).
Activity - Pop! Rocket Launcher
We didn't complete this activity together, but Mr. Casaburri did have an example which he showed us in the classroom. In this rocket launcher, you connect a path of pvc pipe which has an empty 2-liter soda bottle on one end and the rocket on the other. When you stomp on the empty soda bottle, enough air pressure runs through the pvc pipe (1/2") to shoot off the rocket.
This final activity the speaker talked about (though we did not complete) was called 3... 2... 1... PUFF! In this activity, students create small rockets out of paper, pencils, and PVC pipe.
I really enjoyed these activities because they are guaranteed to teach students in an authentic way and keep them interested in science and math. In my senior internship, the boys in the class were absolutely obsessed with making and flying paper airplanes, and I have seen this will all ages. What elementary school boy DOESN'T like making paper airplanes?! By introducing rockets and allowing students to make and fly something while they are learning, the material will be enjoyed more and the students will remember the material later on.
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