LiftOff Summer Institute

This summer I was fortunate to be selected to attend a NASA LiftOff Summer Institute.  The institute was for science and math teachers to come to NASA in Houston and learn about all the happenings going on with space and how we can integrate activities into our classroom.  Wow, did I learn some amazing stuff!  Did you know that we currently have a space vehicle in flight to Mars?!  During our conference we learned all about NASA's mission to Mars.  I never would have imagined all the teamwork that goes into making these missions work!

Here were my top five favorite things of the week:
1)  We learned all about robots that are being designed to use in space.
2)  We had a speaker talk to us about the design of the new space suit!
3)  I got to meet two real astronauts who have both been on the International Space Station.
4)  The Neutral Buoyancy Lab!  A huge pool that has a life-size model of the ISS in it. This is where the astronauts do part of their training and practice the tasks they will perform in space.
5)  My most favorite was the Challenger Space Mission!  We did this at the Houston Museum of Natural History.  We pretended to first be on a space shuttle and our team at home had to help us land on the Moon.  Then, I got to be in Mission Control and help the next crew land on Mars.  It was all pretend, but we learned so much about working together and about what it takes to be a member of the real life Mission Control!

Here are some pictures from our week!

 Both Mr. Morris and Mrs. Wilson also attended the conference.  Here we are pictured on the Kemah Boardwalk in Galveston on the first night.

 Getting ready to enter the shuttle!  Our job was to put together a space probe and launch it...we didn't know it at the time, but this was a very important part of the mission.  I am pictured with Jennifer Pastor, a teacher from Louisiana, who we befriended during the week.  We were a great team!!

 Waiting to see if our probe launched successful..it did!

 Sitting on the other side in Mission Control.  We got a "top secret" note that said the probe had nuclear weapons on it and if we didn't instruct our crew correctly we could wipe out Earth!  We didn't wipe out Earth.

 This was my favorite astronaut that we met, Tim Kopra!  I was amazed at his strong character and values..he made you want to be a better person and teacher!

The Neutral Buoyancy Lab.  Isn't it amazing!