Each team of teachers from the NASA Explorer Schools that were here last week to fly on the reduced gravity airplane were required to make a short video of their experience and post it on teachertube.com. (Like YouTube for teachers! Ha!) All the teams got together on Friday afternoon to finish out the week by watching each others’ videos. I decided to stick around and was very glad I did — all the videos were so great, and it really made me happy that I’ve been able to participate in these educational programs over the years. They are so fun, and SO worthwhile.
I’ll post other photos from the week soon, but in the meantime, enjoy the video my team put together. (Those viewing via RSS will have to click over to see the embedded video.) My favorite part is actually the beginning, when they show all their students working on the experiments in their classrooms. I remember so many of their faces from when I got to visit their schools in January, and I remember how awesome it was to see them excited about their experiments and their teachers getting to fly it on the Vomit Comet. They are all fourth and fifth graders, so their experiments were very simple. But I think that’s the best kind — and at that level, I’d argue that it’s not so much about coming up with an intricate experiment and getting solid results, but more about learning the scientific method and just getting kids excited about science and math in general.
