Up, up and away

The students were launching handmade paper rockets. More importantly, they were learning a valuable lesson that may lead them down the path to science.

"Through a program like this, these kids see that math and science can be fun and exciting," said Rob Carrillo of the Challenger Learning Center. Carrillo was at Cottonwood Creek for a week of NASA-based presentations and hands-on activities for the students, thanks to a grant applied for by teacher LeAnn Mansavage.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the students were making rockets out of construction paper and tape. The air-powered launches sent the rockets high in the air, eliciting applause from the students. Little did they know they were learning about things like velocity, gravity, equal and opposite forces and some dude named Isaac Newton, who knew a few things about science, as it turns out.

"The students have been looking forward to this for a while," Mansavage said prior to the week-long program. "They are excited about NASA coming to their school."

And that has NASA excited, too.

"These programs are great because they are designed for this age level [fourth- and fifth-graders] because learning is still 'cool,'" Carrillo said. "When you get to middle school, kids are too cool for math and science. Programs like this make them see that it can be fun."

More than 150 kids in six classes took part in the week-long program. This is the end of a three-year grant for the NASA program, and it has visited 14 communities since its inception. While the funding runs out at the end of this year, Carrillo said Alaskans will see the positive results for years to come.

"While we are here to educate the kids, we are here to also teach the teachers about resources that are available to them," Carrillo said.

"Teachers are enlightened about what kind of units they can design in their curriculum using nothing more than tape and paper. These resources are out there for them, but finding out about them sometimes can be tough," he added.

To Carrillo and NASA, the look in the students' eyes as a rocket gets sent skyward is reason enough to be happy about the future.

"This is when you hook them on science and math," Carrillo said.

"There's hope when you see how excited they get about cool stuff like this," Carrillo said.