Ruppert teaches math for sixth- seventh- and eighth-graders, seventh-grade science for gifted students and eighth-grade current events, also for the gifted students through the school’s Social Studies Explorations program.
Her Space Camp experience will help her in teaching all of her varied classes, but it’s in the science area it will have the most application, thanks to some of the “toys” she was able to bring back, she said.
“Honeywell provided funding for all of us. They made us feel special, like a VIP,” she said. “In our applications, an essay had to say how we would use it and what we expected to get out of it.”
That turned out to be a lot.
The program has an international feel to it with participants from around the world. Ruppert was part of a 14-member team that took part in space mission scenarios, operating from a script but actually performing the duties of members of a mission team.
“There were 14 people in the group. That’s how many people it takes to run a space mission,” she said. Her team included a pilot from Turkey and someone from Kenya. “It was a little bumpy, that first space mission we did. It’s amazing how much goes into a space mission and how much you need to know.”
Her Space Camp session ran from June 15-21 and was part of a parallel program with a Space Camp for children. Ruppert said she was able to see some of that effort and was impressed with a student program for those with visual impairments, even including use of Braille.
“They helped each other. Those with some vision helped those with none,” she said.
While much of the Space Camp activity was mental, a lot of it was physical, as well and Ruppert said she tackled everything as both a challenge and fun. One of those activities was to glide into water as if on a parachute and there were several events to simulate the weightlessness of space but it was a spinning apparatus — much like a gyroscope or a centrifuge — with the person seated in the middle that was most difficult for many participants. She had little trouble with it, however.
“I like rides. I just wanted to see if I could stay with it. Everybody did it, but some wanted out after a few seconds. You did what you could do,” she said. “I like doing everything, so I had no problem.”
They were also required to build their own rockets and then launch them. They had to create Mars rovers with an egg as a driver. The rover had to be dropped from 15 to 20 feet and then still operate without the egg having broken.
She is incorporating a Lego rover into her science class which has a computer built and must be programmed to perform certain tasks such as turning various directions and navigating on a large floor mat simulating the surface of Mars.
“Kids get a chance to build. Kids get a chance to code,” she said of those kits, which she is purchasing with grant funding.
Another fun part of her Space Camp experience was getting to use nanofibers which they were able to test with various things to determine strength. She said there are applications in business but also explained dust on the moon when astronauts landed there was like glass, which could be abrasive to space suits.
They also had an opportunity to work on creating heat shields, which are used in space flight to mitigate the extreme heat temperatures when a space vehicle re-enters the atmosphere.
In one project, they were required to create a heat shield to protect an egg from a torch placed nearby and aimed directly at it. Part of the project was to select materials for the shield with a cost assigned to them and to accomplish saving the egg within budget. They were even required to draw a face on the egg with the idea of giving it emotion and, therefore, a personality.
She is hoping to work out a way to have students do a similar experiment but plans to discuss ways to safely do that with the fire department.
While steeped in science, Space Camp gave this teacher a greater sense of the world, which helps in Ruppert’s current events class.
“There were people from around the world and we are keeping in touch through Facebook. You bond and it makes you more aware of world events, giving you a more global attitude in the classroom,” Ruppert said. “There were a couple gals from Malaysia. One was observing Ramadan and could not eat during the day. We were eating well and it was a shock for people from the outside (to see).”
Ruppert was also impressed by a couple of the speakers who talked to the participants.
Ed Buckbee, who wrote the book “Space Cowboys,” was one speaker. He was the founder of Space Camp and is a former NASA spokesperson, who worked with Wernher von Braun, the director of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Marshall Space Flight Center, from 1960 to 1970. It was von Braun who developed the Saturn IB and Saturn V space vehicles, as well as the Saturn I rocket for the Apollo 8 moon orbit in 1969.
Ruppert prizes a signed copy of the book “Rocket Boys” by author Homer Hickam, who also spoke to Space Camp participants. The book was made into the movie “October Sky.”
Hickam’s website explains the book grew from a short article about his life as a young boy growing up in Coalwood, WV and aspiring to be a rocket scientist. The article, entitled “The Big Creek Missile Agency,” was written for Air & Space Magazine in 1994. “Rocket Boys: A Memoir” was published by Delacorte Press in September 1998 and the movie based on it, “October Sky” premiered nationwide on his birthday Feb. 19, 1999.
Ruppert joined the Talawanda district in 2000, teaching three years at Stewart School and leaving for four years — three at Union County High School and one in College Corner — before returning to Talawanda, where she taught fifth grade at Bogan Elementary before moving to Talawanda Middle School.
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