It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a rocket launched from the courtyard on the Hill.
For the past twenty years, the UT College of Education, Health and Human Sciences, the UT Astronomy Lab and the Civil Air Patrol U.S. Air Force Auxiliary have teamed up to teach a three week aerospace and STEM workshop for teachers across Knox County each July.
As directors, Lt. Colonel Dave Garner and Lt. Colonel Gary Lynn of the USAF Civil Air Patrol and Barry Golden of UT College of Education, Health and Human Sciences have witnessed more than 400 teachers go through the workshop.
A new group of teachers gathers every July for an intensive workshop to build relationships and learn new methods of teaching. They range from kindergarten teachers to 12th grade, and they come from “across all walks and parts of life,” according to Mary Kitwell, a Knox County substitute teacher with 18 years of teaching under her belt.
“It’s three weeks long, so it’s hard,” Kitwell said. “But it’s so rewarding as a teacher.”
Over the course of the workshop, the group of twelve teachers has taken a trip to the Space and Rocket Museum in Huntsville, Alabama, co-piloted a flight with the Civil Air Patrol, visited McGhee-Tyson airport and done multiple experiments and projects that they can later bring to the classroom with them.
Part of this summer’s workshop conclusion occurred Wednesday morning when the group flew model planes, dropped eggs off the roof of the Nielsen Physics Building and launched rockets into the air amid a group of spectators. At 9 a.m., Paul Lewis, director of Space and Science Outreach for the workshop, gave safety instructions for the day and helped the class prep their rockets.
The group then trooped out to the front of the building where the egg drop took place. Each teacher packed in the egg to protect from the several story drop. Some of the makeshift cushioning included bubble wrap, propellers and one packaging inspired by a school lunch.
For the first time in the workshop’s history, every egg survived the drop unscathed.
Next, the group moved onto model airplanes, lining up to release their planes into the sky after the countdown; though for several, the planes flew straight into the ground.
Still, spirits were not deterred, and the group rewound the planes for a second flight, leading to the final event of the day — the rocket launch.
Two at a time, the teachers placed their rockets on the launch pad and went back to the control panel. The group gave a loud countdown and the teachers pushed the button to a group of cheers each time, attracting a few spectators. The roughly foot-tall rockets whizzed upwards and at the peak of their height, a parachute popped out to bring the rocket back down to Earth, or in one case, a tree.
Such projects are fun for students and engage them in ways standard classroom discussion cannot, said Pat Newman, who wants to start a STEM after-school club.
“The biggest challenge we’ve had is not exposing them enough to science,” she said. “And I really want to push for that in our classrooms. We put them in this box and tell them to stay there.
“But I want them to be exposed to the whole wide world out there. Space isn’t a special club — they can be in it too.”
