LEARNING AT NASA

Charle's Youngs Wildcats At NASA

My week at Goddard was fun. While at Goddard, I participated in many fun activities and experiments. Our teacher, Mrs. Stokes taught us about space and satelites. We discussed how satelites work. We also studied rockets. That was my favorite part. We constructed paper rockets and taped film canisters to the bottom. Then, we put water and alka-seltzer into the canister and put the top on very fast. The next step was to set the rocket on the ground and wait for it to launch. Another fun activity was to visit the clean room. It contains the instruments that scientists make. It is called the clean room because it contains no dirt. If dirt touches any instruments that they send into space, the whole experiment might malfunction.

While at Goddard, my class and I had the chance to meet real scientists. They talked about how space affects what happens on Earth. We interviewed lots of scientists. My favorite scientist was Mr. Smith. Mr. Smith taught us about light, color, and stars. I also learned about the speed of light. I learned that when light shines on black objects, the objects absorb the light. That is why black is not a hot color. When light goes through a white object, the light reflects itself. I also learned lots of new words like: radar, translate ,transmission, HESSI, satellites, binary code, and chemical change. I learned that a chemical change is when two chemicals are mixed together to make a new and different chemical. This week at Goddard allowed me to learn new and different information about satellites and how they work in space. It was a lot of fun working with Mrs. Stokes and the other scientists. I really enjoyed my week at NASA!

On the first day of our trip to NASA , we met Mrs. Stokes. We will be working with her during our stay at NASA. When we got there, we interviewed a scientist named Dr Jo. She told us about her job here at NASA. She is a scientist who studies stars. Later that day, we interviewed another scientist , Dr. Frederick Lang who works with telescopes. then we learned about satellites. On Wednesday we had to catch up on things because some people were not there. So later that day we interviewed Mr. Fitzgerald who is an engineer. He helped me and my partner with our object then he told us a little about himself.

When I went to NASA, I learned that I can be any scientist that I want. I loved the scientific words that we learned on the chart that Mrs. Stokes put up. I liked when we interviewed people and when we got finished, we talked about it. I liked the walking tours. NASA was a great experience for us.

My week at NASA was fun. On the first day, we met Mrs. Stokes. She welcomed us and gave us our notebooks. We praticed interviewing with Dr. Jo. She is an astrophysicist who studies stars. Then we interviwed Dr. Frederic Lang. Dr .Lang is a research associate and he studies the sun. In the afternoon, we went to several buildings. We met Dr.Holt and he told us how he helps other scientists do their jobs. In another building, we saw a spacecraft that was being built. We made a word wall. We recorded and defined new words that we learned during the week. Some of the words that we learned were radar, vidicon tube, Hubble Space Telescope, remote sensing, and payload. On Tuesday my class got the chance to make paper rockets. We went outside to launch our rockets. Some of the rockets went as high as eight to twenty feet. After the first launch, we made two adjustments and we tried launching the rockets again. We wrote on our data sheet the results of our rocket launchings. On Wednesday, we interviewed more scientists. Mr. Rick Fitzgerald is a mission manager and he is in charge of people who build satellites. We played with the mind reader game. Someone would go out of the room while another student would choose a number from one to sixty-three. The student, who is out of the room, comes back and uses the mind reader cards to guess the number. We used the binary system to read the mind reader cards. On Thursday, we learned about light. The UV light is the color of light next to purple in the spectrum. Mr. Smith taught us about light and the moon. We stood in different positions with tennis balls to show the different sizes of the moon. I had a great time participating in the science and math activities. I liked learning about space from the different scientists that we met.

THIS WEEK AT GODDARD SPACE FLIGHT CENTER DR. JO SHARED WITH US ALL ABOUT HER WORKING CAREER AT NASA . ON WEDNESDAY I LEARNED SOME FUN THINGS. WE LEARNED ABOUT THE MIND READER CARDS. COMPUTERS USE THEM TO SEND MESSAGES TO EARTH FROM OUTER SPACE. THIS IDEA IS REALLY UNBELIEVEABLE!!!!! I LEARNED ABOUT THE SPEED OF LIGHT AND THE DIFFERENT COLORS OF LIGHT. WE LEARNED ABOUT THE SPECTRUM OF LIGHT USING SPECIAL GLASSES. WE INTERVIEWED DIFFERENT SCIENTISTS. WE MADE ROCKETS AND MOUNTAINS WITH PLAY DOH. THE NEXT DAY WE MADE OUR OWN LITTLE ROCKETS. WE WENT TO A CLEAN ROOM THAT WE HAD TO CLEAN OUR FEET IN A MACHINE.

On my first day at NASA, I had a good time. I had an interview with a scientist named Dr. Jo. Dr. Jo studies the Sun. On that same day, we met Dr. Frederic Lang. He told us that he studies the Sun. We visited different buildings in the center. The next day was Tuesday, the class wrote down some words we learned from the buildings we visited on a Word Wall. Some of the words were astrophysicist, spectroscopy, solar flare, HESSI, satellite, clean room/tent, payload, and integration. The class played a game using Mind Reader Cards. The next day, Wednesday, we made some paper rockets and the ingredients were alka-seltzer and water.That's my week at NASA!!!

At Goddard Space Flight Center we have been learning about many interesting things. Mrs. Stokes our teacher has been helping us understand what they do here at Goddard. Many scientists and engineers work here at Goddard. They study the solar system, the Sun, the Moon and the planets. We interviewed lots of people like Dr. Fisher, Chief of the Solar Physics Department. The next day we saw the Hubble Space Telescope, it is as big as a our school bus. I want to thank Mrs. Stokes for making this possible for us to come here.

This week at Goddard we had fun. We made rockets with paper, film canisters, water, and an alka-seltzer tablet. We also went in this room where we had to clean off our shoes. The room was called the clean room. We also used Play Doh to make a planet. We saw a tape about space it was interesting, the picture was taken over top of New Mexico.Our guide Mrs. Stokes taught us some new words like pixel which is like a graph, and image that is a picture.

At Goddard, we met a lot of scientists, like Mr. Smith, Mr. Fisher,and Ms. Robin. My favorite interviewer was Mr. Smith because he taught us what light does and how fast it travels. I like Mr.Smith's coat because it looked like a rainbow. It looked so cool! Mrs. Stokes was so nice she let us make rockets. We had to use paper, colored pencils, film containers, and Alka-Seltzer tablets. I know that we mixed a liquid and a solid and they turned into a gas that made the rocket explode. This is an example of a chemical change. My rocket launched the first time I did it. The second time we did it, it went right in the air . Then I tried it again and it did not move. So I carried my rocket to Mrs. Stokes and it exploded in my hand. The rocket went right past Mrs. Stokes' face. I felt a funny touch. It felt like my hand was going with the rocket. Mrs. Stokes let us fly the rockets a couple of times. I liked it so much that I kept asking her if we could do it again and again. I wouldn't mind if Mrs. Stokes came to our school to stay a while. She did so much for us and she taught us a lot of science words like astrophysicist,spectroscopy, transmission and more! I just can't think of any more right know. Mrs. Stokes was so nice, I hope we come back to NASA because it is a great place to be!

My week at Goodard was lots of fun . We learned about different kinds of gases like hydrogen, neon, helium and then we learned a new gas called mercury. After Mrs. Stokes left we got a new host, Mr. Vern Smith. He showed us how lights that have color can change colors in the dark. We learned educational things like how messages are sent from a satellite to Earth by using binary code. I learned when using big words it's important to know their meanings. Mr. Smith said "What's the deal with using big words without knowing what they mean?" Mrs. Stokes and Mr. Smith makes learning science fun and with school teachers like them I wouldn't mind studying science in college.

This week at NASA was fun. I learned about spectra and wavelengths. I learned how fast light travels and how to capture it. I learned some new words too for example; mass, UV and much more. I saw some new things. I also interviewed people, that was fun to do. I saw a clean room at NASA and we had to clean our feet on a machine. Next I saw a satellite that wasn't finished. I learned about the Mind Reader cards and the Base 10 Chart. I also saw the Hubble Space Telescope it was orange it looked like a wrapped gift. We took a tour the first day we were here ,that was fun too. We also made little rockets and mine went the highest. We used alka-seltzer tablets to make the rockets blast off. Mr, Smith was the best one I Interviewed. He talked about the speed of light. I want to say thank you to Mrs. Stokes and everyone else for your participation with Charles Young Elementary School.

When my teacher told us we were going to NASA for a whole week I was surprised. On day one when we arrived at Goddard we learned what SUNBEAMS stands for. We also recieved notebooks and a lot of work papers. We talked about the right ways to ask a question to a person we will see at Goddard. At NASA we interviewed librarians, scientists, and engineers. Mrs. Stokes said each time we hear a new word copy it down. We had over 20 words such as solar flare, payloads, HESSI, Newton's 3rd Law, variables, chemical change, reactants, transmission, pixel, matter, binary code, and T.D.R.S. On day one we also took a tour of Goddard where we saw a model of the Hubble Space Telescope. We also went into a small clean room. We learned how easy a satellite can malfunction if it is dirty. On day two we made model rockets and we blasted them off. After that we made grafphs telling how far the rockets went. On day three we made model planets and exchanged them. Then we used a skewer to stick into the model planet's atmosphere. On day four we talked about wavelengths and we saw three different colored lights, neon, hydrogen, and helium. We had a wonderful experience!

On Monday I was excited that we were going to Goddard. When we got there Mrs. Stokes gave everyone a name tag so that the guards would know that we were invited guests. When I got inside we learned what a word wall was. I learned that an Astrophysicist is a person that studies the stars and spectroscopy is the study of the different parts of light. Then we interviewed some people that work at Goddard. I learned lots of things about the jobs of the people we interviewed. Then we went on a short tour before we went back to school. On Tuesday I heard my class made rockets and had lots of fun. I went skiing at Ski Liberty, that's one reason I wasn't at Goddard. On Wednesday I listened while my class reviewed their lesson from Tuesday. After reviewing the work we watched a video on how satellites mapped the terrain of Venus. Then we did a project to get an understanding of remote sensing. After the projct was done, we interviewed Mr. Fitzgerald, who was an engineer.

On Thursday I had lots of fun learning things about the moon and light. When Mrs.Stokes left I even had more fun with our substitute Mr. Smith . He was the one that taught us about the moon and more about light. After we interviewed him we asked him questions about the food that the astronauts eat in space. They eat regular food that has been dried, that they have to add water to before eating it. We learned a great deal of useful information here at NASA. We learned a lot and I would like to return to NASA for another week.