It wasn’t wilderness camp, or scouting camp, or even music camp. One Fargo Public Schools teacher did spend part of his summer at camp – but it was an “out-of-this-world” experience at a space exploration camp!
Ben Franklin Middle School Science Instructor Barry Olson spent five days in June at Space Camp® for Educators in Huntsville, Alabama. Olson (pictured at right with his camp acceptance letter) joined ten other educators from across the country to form “Team Kibo,” named for the Japanese module of the International Space Station. Together they completed programming that included authentic astronaut training simulations, rocket builds and launches, and other activities to enable them to better promote space exploration and education in their school classrooms. Team Kibo’s Space Academy curriculum included NASA content and correlated to National Science Education Standards for transition to their own science classroom lessons.
Olson’s favorite part of Space Camp was taking part in “missions” to experience what astronauts do during a space flight. “It was eye-opening and a little stressful. For our two team missions, I took on the roles of Mission Commander, the pilot, and CapCom, the person who communicates directly with the NASA flight director, and serves as the messenger between the two worlds of space and land. It was exhilarating!”
Olson decided to participate in Space Camp to be able to enlighten his students with hands-on activities about space exploration. He sees space as the new frontier for this and future generations of students. Olson was impacted by the mindset of guest speaker Lowell Zoller (pictured at left with Olson), who spent 36 years as a project manager at NASA, dreaming up and engineering ground-breaking technology utilized by the United States’ Space Program. Olson shared, “It’s Zoller’s words that stick out the most for me for my whole Space Camp experience, when he said, ‘It’s not about putting our feet on Mars, but the technology to get there that is important, because that will shape the future.’ That attitude of discovery is what we as teachers and our students need to embrace, because that’s what we need to tackle the future with success!”
Olson already presents a SCUBA activity unit for eighth grade science students that incorporates underwater activities mimicking the zero-gravity atmosphere astronauts experience in space. His recent Space Camp experiences will now allow him to take his classroom activities to the next level of discovery and space exploration.
Seventh grade students in Olson’s science classroom this school year will participate in Tomatoshpere, a scientific experimentation project that investigates the effects of the space environment on the growth of food that will inevitably support long-term human space travel. The students will grow tomato plants from two groups of seeds: one that was stored for several months on the International Space Station, and another control group of “regular” seeds, but they won’t know which group is which. Results are reported back to a consortium of project sponsors. Olson’s students will be the only ones in North Dakota participating in this future-focused project. Olson admitted he hasn’t researched the anticipated project results so he remains unbiased about the outcome along with his students.
His eighth grade students will participate in the Near-Space Balloon Competition sponsored by the North Dakota Space Grant Consortium. Student teams will create a project payload proposal, then design, build, and launch a scientific experiment aboard a high altitude balloon, which travels to 100,000 feet into the stratosphere. At that height, the curvature of the Earth, the thin blue atmosphere line, and the darkness of space are all visible.
You can read much more about Olson’s Space Camp adventures on his Ben Franklin Middle School Science Classroom Google Site, which also includes videos and slide shows of Team Kibo’s activities.
Science teacher Barry Olson might have been the one to actually experience Space Camp during summer vacation 2016, but it is his students who will reap the benefits far into the future of his renewed commitment to an attitude of discovery, with a focus on space exploration!
The North Dakota Space Grant Consortium supported Olson’s travel and tuition expenses to attend Space Camp, and he will earn continuing education credit for participating in this “out-of-this-world” professional development opportunity.