Space Day!

May 4th 2007 is Space Day. Lockheed sponsors this Space Day event at a bunch of schools and this year I volunteered to go talk to kids at 2 schools near our house. Altruistic as it sounds, there were some benefits to me as well. I didn't have to make my crappy drive to work since I picked schools that were within a few miles of the house, and each year Lockheed mandates some of our individual objectives that we get rated against for our performance reviews. This volunteer junk is always one of them. So this worked out well for everyone.

First I went to Read-Pattillo elementary. Jen teaches there and that is Melissa's preferred location to do her substitute teaching. Hopefully she'll be a full time teacher there next year. I had approached Jen about this since she works there and she recommended a 4th grade teacher that she put me in touch with to coordinate the event. Well, that teacher was out sick today so I had to do my dog and pony show in front of Jen! She was covering the class until a sub showed up. She says it went great, so I better not hear anything different on her blog!!!!! Lockheed provided some giveaways for the event, and since this school just got a new Rocket mascot, Lockheed sent me some Rocket shaped pencils to hand out to the kids.

So that went pretty well, and then I went to Em's kindergarten class and ran through some of the same stuff, but re-geared for the younger kids. Instead of Rocket pencils, I ordered them some activity books that had coloring, mazes, trivia and drawing activities included. It also came with crayons and stickers! We also did an experiment with film canister rocket engines and a demonstration of rocket thrust and steering using a "rocket balloon". For that one I needed an assistant...