Tag Archives: Morehead Planetarium

Co-Pilots.

I’m sure many of us feel this way, but my project/curriculum would never have been conceivable had I not been partnered with the North Carolina Science Festival.

My mentors, Marissa Hartzler (NCSF K-12 Programs Coordinator) and Jonathan Frederick (NCSF Director) were instrumental in my creation of this curriculum and the success that came from it as I implemented it in my classroom.

With Marissa and Jonathan!
With Marissa and Jonathan!

Between the three of us, we were constantly exchanging emails with links and ideas for the curriculum. We would find an article that would link us to a video that would remind us of this other activity we saw on NASA’s website and the trail sharing continued. Marissa was an incredible sounding board for my ideas and brought a welcome perspective as a K-12 program coordinator and previous educator.

As I went about teaching my curriculum to my class last semester, I asked Marissa to come co-teach a lesson with me. She was able to come and work with both of my classes, which was amazing considering that’s two hours of time in a day that isn’t back-to-back. We discussed weather patterns and how weather impacts flight and launch dates/times, and she was able to discuss in more detail the current events we saw with the Antares rocket launch. We tracked the ISS with my kids and factored in the weather forecasts at the time, highlighting how there are people at NASA doing that very job in that very moment (needless to say, my kids thought that was one of the coolest things EVER).

Marissa also brought my kids a stuffed Kelvin, the NCSF mascot, for our classroom. Kelvin now hangs out in the front of the room and the kids LOVE having him as our class mascot. 🙂

Our class mascot (and the NCSF mascot) Kelvin hanging out with us at Astronaut Boot Camp!
Our class mascot (and the NCSF mascot) Kelvin hanging out with us at Astronaut Boot Camp!

The collaboration to make this curriculum happen has been unreal. I have been connected to people at Morehead Planetarium, librarians from across the state, UNC children’s literature experts, NCSU aerospace engineering students, and more — all thanks to the mentorship I’ve had with Marissa and Jonathan at the NCSF.

Huge ups to my mentors for all their hard work and flexibility throughout this project; couldn’t have done any of this without such incredible co-pilots!

One-Way Flight

As I type this, I sit at my desk in the North Carolina Science Festival/Morehead Production Team office above Sugarland and Carolina Coffee Shop on Franklin Street. My water bottle drips a few beads of sweat while I pull my denim shirt tighter around me to ward off impending goosebumps. I think I might miss being perpetually chilly…

Today is my last day in the office with the team. I’m heading to Ohio for a few days with family, and when I return it’ll be time for me to start whipping my elementary school classroom into shape before the workdays start (does anyone else find it completely absurd that on workdays we never have actual chunks of time to get our classrooms ready? Or is that just me?). Truly, this summer has flown by.

It feels not so long ago that we were all at NCCAT meeting one another for the first time, making connections with our spirit dogs, and adventuring down the Nantahala (HOW GREAT WAS THAT?!).

As I sit here, I find the time to type this because my lessons are completed. My supplemental materials are finished. All that’s left for me to do is wait — I want to review the curriculum with the other third grade teachers at my school, and my mentors need to review the curriculum as well. I’ve started taking the teacher lesson plans I’ve written and translating them into layman’s terms for the Festival’s public library program so we can put together some one-page activity guides.

I’ve also been sketching planes and rockets, but that’s been happening since all this started in the middle of June.

This has been an experience that was unexpected yet wonderful. I’ve learned a lot, and not only in regards to flight. I’ve learned about professionalism, how to work with a wide array of people, and increasing community engagement by networking. I knew this internship would look different than that of my peers, and it was hard for me hearing about all the amazing, hands-on activities so many other people were doing throughout the summer while I sat on a computer most of the day. I had to continue to tell myself to be patient, and that my hands-on moments would come, they’d just come later.

Now that our summer chapter is coming to an end, I’m feeling very hopeful, excited, and happy. I feel very good about my program activities, and I can’t wait to see them translated into activity guides for librarians, informal educators, and other teachers to use. I think the lessons are solid and the community outreach piece that we’re still working on will be just as strong. I’m excited to continue my connections with people at places like the Carolinas Aviation Museum, North Carolina Library Services, and the Wright Brothers Memorial. I’m beyond excited to start communication with companies like Raytheon and Lockheed Martin (insert nerd FREAK OUT here).

Ultimately, I just cannot wait to meet the sweet babies that get to be my passengers on this curriculum pilot with me!

[Puns!]

This whole summer has given me a fresh perspective on what it means to really engage my students. I like to think I’m fairly aware of what hooks my kiddos, and I’m constantly trying to do all that I can to make their learning experiences enjoyable ones. I’ve seen firsthand the effectiveness of getting kids to create and do, not just “sit and get” their information, and between my previous classroom experiences and this summer’s KFP experience, I’m more cognizant of how imperative it is to grab student attention with science.

Even though today is my last day in the office with NCSF and Morehead staff, they know they’ll have to do more than take away my keys to rid me of this office. 🙂

Here’s to a beautiful summer filled with experiential learning, and an even more beautiful start to a new school year!