It's hard to believe that we have just passed the 50th anniversary of the first satellite launched into earth orbit, the Russian Sputnik satellite launched October 4, 1957. In one sense, 50 years is a long time, but in the scope of human history we're still at the beginning of the Space Age. Scientists and engineers have proven so much of what we can do in building spaceships to reach beyond our planet. And yet the rest of the solar system and all the stars above await us. Do your students dream of exploring space? Can they imagine they will be the ones to set new records like was done with the Sputnik launch? Start with this history lesson to talk about rocketry. Then maybe you'd like to have your class launch a model rocket on January 31 next year to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Explorer 1 launch, America's first satellite. Rocket science is part of our history, can your students make it part of our future? Aim high.

Vince Huegele, NAR Education Chairman

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Contents

1. Team America Rocketry Challenge Registration Closes November 30

2. NARCON 2008

3. Air Force Association Educator Grant Applications Due November 15

4. NAR Cannon Teacher Award and College Scholarship Award Winners

5. Become a NASA Explorer School

6. Follow-up: Building Rockets in a Group Setting

7. Rocketry In Education Google Group

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Team America Rocketry Challenge Registration Closes November 30

The Team America Rocketry challenge is open for registration until Nov. 30. This year's Challenge is to design, build, and fly a model rocket carrying 2 raw eggs and return them safely to the ground while staying aloft for exactly 45 seconds and reaching an altitude of 750 feet. Teams whose score was one of the 100 best were invited to compete for a share of the $60,000 prize package at the 2008 National Finals at Great Meadow, in The Plains, Virginia, on May 17, 2008. This is the largest model rocketry event in the world, with 7000 students participating each year.

You can read about the 2007 TARC finals in the September-October issue of Sport Rocketry magazine.

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NARCON 2008

The annual National Association of Rocketry convention, NARCON 2008, will be held at the Kahler Grand Hotel in Rochester, Minnesota March 14-16, 2008, hosted by the Minnesota Amateur Spacemodelers Association (MASA). The purpose of NARCON is to educate those interested in all aspects of hobby rocketry. Events include keynote speakers, training seminars, workshops, rocket-building sessions, open discussion forums, and a sport launch. This year's featured speakers will be Vern and Gleda Estes, the founders of Estes Industries. NAR education newsletter editor Joyce Guzik will be giving a seminar on model rocket research and development projects, and NAR education chairman Vinson Huegele will be speaking on a topic to be determined. This is a great convention to meet other educators as well as and model rocket hobbyists.

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Air Force Association Educator Grant Applications Due November 15

The Air Force Association Educator Grant program aims to encourage development of innovative aerospace activities within a prescribed curriculum. The program also encourages establishing an active relationship between the school and the local Air Force Association organization. Maximum Award: $250. Eligibility: classrooms K-12. Deadline: November 15, 2007.

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NAR Cannon Teacher Award and College Scholarship Award Winners

The winners of the NAR cannon award for 2007 were announced at the NRAM banquet in August 2007. These six educators were awarded a $500 grant to be used for their model rocketry classroom education programs. This year's winners are: J. Stuart Powley of Anita Scott Elementary, Texas; Dan Caron of Kingswood Region High School in New Hampshire, Rhonda Cox of Orion High School in Illinois, Allen Cox of Lincoln High School in Los Angeles, CA; Timothy Couillard of James River High School in Midlothian, VA; and Stuart Sharack of Juliet Long School in Gales Ferry, CT.

We are expecting these winners to write for our newsletter or for Sport Rocketry about their program during the coming year so you can learn more about their classroom rocketry programs.

Three college students were awarded $500 scholarships of $500: Adam Rechtenwald who is a freshman at Kent state (major undecided), Cameron Aument who plans to earn a degree in aerospace engineering from U. Maryland, and Joseph Yurko, who is in his 4th year at MIT in aerospace engineering.

2008 Cannon Award applications are being accepted until June 1, while scholarship applications are due May 1. NAR membership is not required for Cannon awards; for the scholarship award, the student must have been an NAR member for at least one year. For applications and more information, see

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Become a NASA Explorer School

Applications are now available for educators interested in joining NASA Explorer Schools during the 2008-2009 school year.  NES offers unique opportunities designed to engage and educate the future scientists who may someday advance U.S. scientific interests through space exploration. Teams composed of full-time teachers and a school administrator develop and implement a three-year action plan to address local challenges in science, technology, and mathematics education for grades 4-9. Schools that are selected are eligible to receive funding during the three-year partnership to purchase technology tools. The project also provides educators and students with content-specific activities that can be used within the curricula to excite students about science, technology, engineering, and math. Application deadline is January 31, 2008.

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Follow-up: Building Rockets in a Group Setting

In the July newsletter I asked for advice about conducting classes to build rockets in a group setting: "Do you insist that the students do all of the steps themselves? What do you do when a student continually asks for help or wants you to do the steps for them? Do you lead the class through each of the steps together, or do you have each student read the instructions and work at his/her own pace?"  I received several responses from educators: Jim Carrie at St. Pius HS in Albuquerque, Andy Heren of Eu Claire, WI, Sarah Shaefer, Kenneth Schreiber of Bemidgji High School, and JoAnn Rachor, an educator in Oregon. It was great to hear from all of you, and to learn about your programs and classroom experiences. (I apologize if I have missed one of your responses; please let me know if I have, and send it again.) This interaction has me convinced that we would benefit from a web forum discussion to post and summarize these ideas, and pose additional questions, so we will try to set this up soon.

For now, here are some highlights of the responses I've received: Kenneth Schreiber wrote that he has struggled with these questions over his 23 years of teaching. He goes over the more difficult building steps first, and then circulates so the students can ask him questions. He also gives them some up-front vocabulary training so that they are not side-tracked by technical jargon. Ken says that his mantra is to encourage the students to ask good questions.

Andy Heren who teaches rockets in middle school science puts the directions on an overhead projector and has the class work through the steps together.  Sarah Schaefer leads the group initially, but encourages the independent learners to work ahead; she observes that teaching in a museum (as did my husband and I) might be a challenge as we don't know the student's history and haven't built rapport.

Jim Carrie has been helping kids build rockets for over 20 years, and has a very advanced rocketry program at St. Pius X high school in Albuquerque, including a TARC team. He has his high-school students help entire 5th grade classes build Alpha 1 rockets over the course of a week during spring break. The high school students (about 5 to 10 of them) circulate around the class and help explain the instructions, but do not do any assembly. JoAnn Rachor noted that the answers to these questions depend on the size of the group, skill level, number of adult helpers available, etc. She suggests having students work in pairs or small teams and including a step to have partners or team members verify whether the step has been followed successfully.  She suggests having a parent and a student each build a separate rocket so that the parent doesn't build the rocket for the student.

Thanks again for all of these suggestions. I hope that I have the chance to meet some of you or visit your rocketry programs in person--if you have more ideas or suggestions, you may continue to send them to me at jguzik@mindpsring.com.

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Rocketry In Education Google Group

Click on the link that says "Sign in and apply for membership".  If you don't have a google account click on the link on the right side of the sign-in page that says Create an account now. If you already have a google account sign in using your email and password.

Each user has an option to have:

1) No email sent - You visit the group website to read messages (Pull)

2) Abridged Email - Summary of new activity sent by email daily

3) Digest Email - Get up to 25 new messages bundled into a single email sent daily (Push)

4) Email - each message is sent to you as it is posted to the group (Push)

You may also pick a nickname to use in the group. It is required that you share a sentence or two about your interest in this group so that the moderator can add you to the group and help weed out the requests from spammers to be added. For example Tom Swift Jr. might write, "I teach science at Fearing Island High School and am interested in others who use Fictional Literature in their teaching. I have a TARC team working on the 2008 challenge this summer and we meet once a week."

As a question for discussion, I am thinking that in the spring and summer when the rocket sport launches and competitions, NARCON and NARAM, are imminent and I have no models to fly or new materials prepared, I always resolve that the next winter I will spend some time building new rockets or learning something new for a presentation or demonstration or research and development project. Do you have any plans as the winter months set in to prepare for events next spring and summer?

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National Association of Rocketry

2275 Geode Street

Marion, Iowa 52302