Saturday, December 18, 2010

GREAT OPPORTUNITY: NASA EDUCATIONAL RESOURCE CENTERS



I met these people at the MSTA Conference and they are wonderful. This is a great opportunity for a class including the teacher.

Their brief description of the program:

The Challenger Learning Center (CLCofMe) is a private, non-profit, 501(c)3 tax-exempt corporation offering educational programs for students and families throughout Maine. Our Mission:
Through a diversity of programs we educate students and teachers in order to inspire an active lifelong passion for space and Earth science.
Currently, an unacceptably high proportion of Maine's middle school students do not meet state standards for educational attainment in mathematics and science. And while a high percentage of our students graduate from high school, too few go on to college - largely because of low aspirations. The Challenger Learning Center of Maine directly addresses these problems. Our programs are designed to:
  • Inspire our young students to achieve higher levels of education, particularly in the areas of mathematics and science;
  • Encourage students to choose careers more aligned with mathematics and science;
  • Motivate more of our local graduates to pursue technology-based opportunities within the State of Maine.
In addition to simulated space missions, the Challenger Center offers professional development opportunities for educators, science education camps during school year and summer vacations, and a variety of family events promoting scientific literacy in everyday life.

Located in Bangor.

http://www.clcofme.org/nasaresources

GREAT NASA SITES FOR ROCKETERS



This site is loaded with goodies and gets you into other more specific sites:
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/index.html

The Maine ERC Site for students:
http://www.clcofme.org/students

This site is the NASA home site:
http://www.nasa.gov/home/index.html


These sites are for teachers:
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/index.html

http://www.clcofme.org/teachers (Maine ERC)

Monday, November 22, 2010

BUILDING YOUR BOTTLE ROCKET

Look at the NASA website.
 http://exploration.grc.nasa.gov/education/rocket/BottleRocket/about.htm

A Search of water bottle rockets will give you plenty of info and ideas. At a minimum you need a bottle, fins and nose cone after that you can get as fancy as you like. A few things to note: a. our launcher will not accept nozzles; b. using glue to attach things to the bottle may weaken it and cause it to explode; c. If the nose cone is made of hard materials, it should not be pointed for safety reasons; d. having a payload or parachute will add weight and take altitude off the flight (but may add fun).

Friday, November 19, 2010

YARMOUTH CLUB SHOOTS PAPER ROCKETS


The Yarmouth Middle School Rocket Club
Teacher Molly Smith with Etan, Henry Thomas and Paul


Thursday, November 4, 2010

Great Bottle Rocket Simulation

Try entering values as close to your rocket as possible.
http://extension.osu.edu/rockets//cgi-bin/design_zone.cgi

Try the same numbers with and without water and note the difference.

Next try some numbers to see about adding weight to the nose.

NASA has a simulator that works well but requires some downloading:
http://exploration.grc.nasa.gov/education/rocket/BottleRocket/WRSimApplet/BRocket.html

Yarmouth Middle School Rocket Club

On Thursday, 11/4/10, the first of three MSSV rocketry session took place. A great time was had by all. In two weeks they will try their own homemade rockets.

Up, Up and Away

Tuesday, November 2, 2010