Avon Students blast off to Mars with NASA Johnson Space Center

Mrs. Meikle’s 5th grade science students enhanced their science curriculum through an interactive videoconference with the Johnson Space Center in Houston Texas. The students were treated to a multimedia rich lesson on Mars and NASA’s mission to the red planet. The videos and images shared to our classes were incredible and provided students a better understanding of our solar system.

The students were issued a challenge to plan a trip to Mars. Once the class was divided into two groups the class learned that the two groups had different tasks to complete, but the groups need to work with each other. Each group was issued three objectives to complete from planning the launch window to and from the planet and how to produce food and find water.

This session was the first of two programs offered by the Johnson Space Center. February 20th the classes will connect to Houston to present the plan to explore Mars. The students have some difficult tasks ahead of them. We look forward to sharing our plans and research collected.

Science “attracts” attention with the Greenbush ESC

Miss Giardini and Mrs. Scalletta’s first grade students participated in a great lesson on magnets with the Greenbush ESC in Girard Kansas. The students were given bar, horseshoe and circle magnets for experiments lead by the instructor. The students used metal shavings to view the magnetic fields created by the different shapes of magnets.

Once the students had a better understanding of how the magnets attracted mental the students hypothesized which magnet was the strongest. Using paper clips the students tested each of the magnets and compare their results.

One of the high lights of the conference for the students and teachers were an activity involving magnets and money. No one would have guessed it would be the dollar bill that would be moved by the magnet.

This was a great program provided by the Greenbush Educational Service Center in Kansas. Check out the IDL program online at www.greenbush.org/IDL/home.html.