Classroom Teacher: Mrs. Dang

Science Teacher: Mrs. Allen

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNED AT GODDARD??

We learned so much! We learned how to properly interview a person and we went on a tour around the campus. Tuesday, we did more interviews and made rockets and launched them. We used a film container, Alka-seltzer, and water as the ingredients for the rockets. On Wednesday, we launched our rockets again after making improvements. We watched a movie about Magellan, a spacecraft which is on Venus at the present time getting information about that planet. Thursday, we had a lot more interviews on other people and we talked about our huge word wall. Some of the words on the word wall are: spectrometer, thermal, solar wind, advanced technology, ultraviolet, binary code, and remote sensing. we did all sorts of activities.

Well, we learned a lot at NASA this week and we learned a lot about how to work with others. We learned how to do this Math exercise that challenges your brain abilities. We also interviewed people like Wanda Peters, Dr. Jo Crannell, Al Diaz, and a lot more, a total of twelve people. An astronomer who studies the sun came into the room and talked about his job. Then he demonstrated a source of light that comes from the sun. This source of light looks like it's one individual color, but when you put on these special glasses, you see all the colors in the spectrum. We talked about how a rocket takes off into space. When it got officially into space, it had some people almost into tears!! It was so amazing how the Earth looked so beautiful! We hope this sets a good example for the next group of kids who will come. Have a nice time!!!!

Learning More About Goddard Space Flight Center

A 6th grade class from Bunker Hill Elementary School spent a week at NASA in Greenbelt, Maryland. When we arrived at NASA, our instructor met us at Goddard's gate and handed us our badges.

SUNBEAMS is a educational program for children. This a great learning experience. We learned more about things such as the Hubble Space Telescope. SUNBEAMS program helps you become more enthusiastic about math and science. The SUNBEAMS program will teach children more about solar physics and things about the Sun. I think the SUNBEAMS program is an opportunity for students to learn about the Sun and what you can discover. It is also a great place because there are facts about the Sun, stars, or planets that are not in a school science lab. It also gives kids a chance to see what the people at NASA do.

Our week at Goddard Space Flight Center

During our week at GSFC, we met people who studied the sun. They are called solar physicists. We also learned about different satellites like HST and SOHO. We also learned Newton's Third Law: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. We used that law to make our rockets fly. We used alka-seltzer, water, and film canisters for the engine of our rockets.

While at NASA my class made model rockets. We used alka-seltzer, water, and film canisters to make our engines for the rockets. We also had people come to our room so we could interview them. We learned that our atmosphere kept out ultraviolet lights. My class and I got to also meet the president of Goddard. We had a great time and we hope other classes will to.

Our Visit to SUNBEAMS

Our week at Goddard Space Flight Center was a treat. We learned about the SOHO and HST. We also learned about astronomy and solar physics. We did an experiment with rockets. We put alka-seltzer in a film canister so that when we added water it would launch. The less water we used the higher it went in the air. After we finished our rockets, our instructors asked us if we knew what made the rocket launched and what was happening in side of our film canister. We did not really know what was happening in side the film canisters all we knew was that it had something to do with pressure and gas. A minute or two minutes later our instructors asked us to look up front. When we looked up front, our teacher put an alka-seltzer tablet in a bottle, and she showed us how it dissolved in the water and how it made a chemical change. We made terrains of planets and poked holes to find the geography of the planet.

When we finished taking pictures we were getting ready to go back home to our school, to our destination. We had a really great time here and expect to come back some day.

Our Week at NASA

I had an excellent time at Goddard Space Flight Center. The class and I would get on the bus to go to NASA. The progam is called SUNBEAMS which stands for Students United with NASA and Becoming Enthusiastic About Math and Science. We interviewed a lot of people about solar physics and they also told us about solar wind. We learned a lot of facts about binary code and the HESSI satellite. Some guests told the class about the Sun, planets, mathematics, and rockets. I noticed a lot of people took courses in physics, mathematics, and astronomy.

We made rockets with paper, writing utensils, coloring pencils, scissors, and a film canister to make the rockets. The materials used to launch the rockets were alka-seltzer and water. We made the rockets and then went outside of the building and launched our rockets. Tuesday, we talked about physical change and chemical change. On Wednesday morning we launched our new rockets. Some of us thought that our new rockets were going to go higher then the last time.

Mrs. Stokes was very nice. Ms.Allen our science teacher spent last summer at NASA for our class. We were the first class in Washington, D.C to go to NASA. So we definitely are setting an example for other classes. This has been very interesting and fun.

SUNBEAMS Students

This week, Mrs. Dang's class went on a field trip to NASA. On the first day, November 30, 1998, we took a tour around the campus. We also discussed how to interview people. On the second day, we built rockets out of white paper and we taped film canisters to them. We used water and Alka-selzer as our rocket fuel. Once the pressure built up, the rockets launched into the air. We improved our rockets to make them fly better. We learned the definition of solar wind, atmosphere, radar, telescope, and more.

The third day, we launched our new rockets. Then after we launched our rockets, we learned about the binary code. We saw a video of the Magellan satellite. Magellan took pictures of Venus. We learned that satellite images are made up of pixels. We used Playdoh to make a terrain of a planet and then, we switched terrains with other groups. After we put foil on the terrains, we poked holes in the foil and made a graph to find the mystery planet.

On the fourth day, we took a lot of interviews and learned a lot of things from different people. We ate lunch outside on the ground and we took pictures outside. Today, the last day for us, we are in the computer room typing up these wonderful web pages for you about our experience. We felt really good that we had the opportunity to be here at NASA.

Our Week at SUNBEAMS 

Our week at NASA was fun. We stayed at NASA for 5 days. We looked at a light through spectra glasses. We learned about sunspots and the Sun. We made rockets using alka-seltzer as fuel which used Newton's 3rd Law to fly. We learned about elements like helium and nitrogen. We learned about the Magellan satellite. We created a terrain of an imaginary planet and atmosphere. We also interviewed important scientists and an astrophysicist. We also learned how to speak in binary code (computer language).

We had 2 things that were more fun than anything else. The most fun was shooting off rockets. We made a rocket body out of paper and taped it to an upside-down film canister. We designed it and took it outside. We poured water into the film canister and counted down. When the count down was over, we put a half of an alka-seltzer in the film canister, put the top back on, and set it down. A few seconds later, the rocket made a loud pop sound and shot up in the air like a bullet! The second thing is the spectra glasses. When we looked at lights, we saw most of the rainbow! When we looked at hydrogen, we saw ALL the colors of the rainbow!

We feel that SUNBEAMS is a good science program for children of all ages. They can learn different scientific projects. They can learn how to decode satellite messages when they send down information.

SUNBEAMS' EXCELLENT PROGRAM

The SUNBEAMS program is a science learning education program for children. You can learn about different kinds of people and what they do at NASA. I learned words like spectrometer, solar wind, protons, and what solar physics is. I also know that an astronomer is a person that studies stars and the planets. I learned over fifty words dealing with science and math. My teacher even learned a couple of things about science. SUNBEAMS is a really good program for children to attend. I learned a lot of things during the week at NASA SUNBEAMS program. I had a wonderful time.

Sunbeams is a very good program for children. It teaches a lot of science for young children. I learned how to build rockets by alka-seltzer, we launched the rockets outside. Some went five feet in the air and higher. I learned how to interview people to see what projects they work on and how to send messages from satellites back to computers on Earth. Some scientists study the Sun and rockets and words you never heard of. I think its a good program for children. I had a great time.

Our week at SUNBEAMS was fantastic. As six graders, we learned a lot about the HESSI and the HST Telescopes. We also learned about the chemicals in the sun which are silicon, helium and magnesium. We also learned that a sunspot is cooler than the rest of the surface of the sun. We learned a lot more! We learned that alka-seltzer and water inside of a closed up object can build up pressure. We learned that solar winds and solar flares cannot enter our atmosphere.

We learned that solar winds are winds from the sun. With out the atmosphere solar winds would cover the Earth. Another thing that I learned is solar physics. A solar physicists is a person who studies solar flares. We found out that the HST satellite found a new planet. We learned that a clean room cleans objects before going into space. I think the purpose of a clean room is to get dust mites off the object that's going in space.

Our week at Goddard was great! We learned new things and met new people, such as Dr. Carol Jo Crannell, Dr. Stuart Jordan, and Dr. Art Poland. We learned new words such as nitrogen, krypton, ultraviolet, Hubble Space Telescope, and spectrometer. We also learned about the jobs people have at NASA and what they have to do to get their job done. We learned how to build a rocket out of paper and to launch it by using water and alka- seltzer tablets. Some words from the word wall are protons, integration, thermal, terrain, and silicon.This week at NASA has been the best learning experience we have ever had in our lives. The SUNBEAMS program would be good for students in other schools and would enhance their knowledge of space and the sun. We saw exclusive footage from a part of a sounding rocket and we saw it leave Earth's atmosphere. We saw what the Earth looks like from space. We saw a real top and wing of a sounding rocket. We looked at helium and oxygen through special glasses. The colors we saw were red, green, blue, and yellow. This week has been very exciting and we hope to come back again!