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Good News About Good SchoolsSunday, June 25, 2006 Out of the classroom into zero gravity4 Volusia teachers take leap of faithBy SANDRA FREDERICK | STAFF WRITERKENNEDY SPACE CENTER — Robert Hernandez unveiled his Superman T-shirt, put his arms out in front of his body and flew nonstop across the air space of G-Force One -- a 727 airliner -- and survived to tell others.
"I was a man of steel, for a few seconds," he said with a laugh. "It was a lot of fun." The eighth-grade science teacher at David Hinson Middle School in Daytona Beach spent two hours Saturday morning flying from the shuttle landing air strip at Kennedy Space Center some 100 miles out over the ocean to Walker Cay in the Bahamas and back -- some of it in zero-gravity flight. The event was designed to take 40 teachers from eight Florida counties out of the classroom and into the air, hoping they could gain hands-on experience, and in turn, teach their students how the phenomenon of mass versus weight really works. "How do you reach out to kids and get them excited (about science, math and space exploration)?" Peter Diamandis, CEO and founder of Zero G Weightless Flights, which sells zero-gravity flights to the public and helped sponsor Saturday´s Weightless Flights of Discovery program, asked the teachers. He explained how his interest in the Apollo missions led him to a career as a medical doctor, graduate of MIT and innovator in the commercial space industry. He urged the teachers to take their love of science and math -- and this experience -- back to the classroom and get the next generation of moonwalkers hooked on space. Part of the two-hour flight was spent performing weight-free experiments. To accomplish this feat, the pilots would make precise arc maneuvers to allow the teachers to float for 20 to 45 seconds at a time without the pressures of gravity. At the bottom of the arc, they would feel a crushing force against their bodies, pushing them toward the ground. The trick to making an easy transition to gravity again was pointing the feet or buttocks toward the floor, flight instructor Tim Bailey said. During the time they were weight-free, the educators were able to jump through hula hoops, play basketball, shoot water into the air and perform circus-like acts -- flips, twists, hand and back springs and flying through the air with no hands. While in flight, four Volusia County teachers performed experiments in zero gravity to test Newton´s laws of mass versus weight*&^%$ material covered on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. Stephanie Tatum, sixth-grade science teacher at Hinson Middle School and lab partner of Hernandez, said she was surprised water was so uncontrollable in the situation. However, M&Ms in a jar separated just like she thought they would. "It was impossible working with the water. It went out into the air and hit the bottom." Sherri Prosser, a sixth- and seventh-grade math teacher at Silver Sands Middle School in Port Orange, said two of her experiments worked and one didn´t. Her teammate, Diane Sartore, a science teacher at Pine Ridge High School in Deltona, tried to catch a few water globules that Prosser sent through the air, only to find she was not able to reach them. "I tried to get there, but I couldn´t," she said. "I couldn´t stop rotating." G-Force One pilot Michael Meyer described the trip as a "10,000 foot roller coaster ride." He said at times the plane would fly about 30 degrees below the horizon, making the feeling possible. For the teachers, it was like a dream come true. "This flight stoked the embers of the passion of people in my profession," Hernandez said. "After doing the same thing for 20 years, it is still cool, but it loses its originality. This flight helped tremendously. It was like using lighter fluid to bring it all back." Typical ExperimentsRichard Regan and Jared Campbell, seventh- and eighth-grade teachers from Stone Middle School in Melbourne, wanted to illustrate Newton´s first and second laws by comparing sizes and weights of two different balls. The pair used a plastic pingpong ball and a steel ball to demonstrate that objects at rest stay at rest and objects in motion will stay in motion, unless affected by an unbalanced force, such as gravity. "In gravity, everything falls. We can show that," Regan said. "In no gravity, they do not fall. Now we can show that, too. Newton was right." Lynde Nanson, a physics teacher at Englewood High School in Jacksonville, wanted to know what magnets would do in a zero-gravity atmosphere. So, she made a rudimentary experiment inside a wooden box with small round poles holding magnets. When in zero-gravity, she found the magnets would move upward on their own and stay there, until the plane came down the other side of the arc where the G force -- and gravity -- would kick in. "It was amazing. The magnets totally did it on their own," she said. Who They Are:STEPHANIE TATUM: ROBERT HERNANDEZ: SHERRI PROSSER: DIANE SARTORE: Home | Workshops | Projects | Publications | Lesson Plans | Links | Bright Ideas | |||||
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