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STEM in 30

The document summarizes a teacher's experience teaching about space exploration and having students write letters to astronauts before and after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. The teacher had students design mission patches and write letters to astronauts in December 2002. In January 2003, as responses were received, the Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart upon reentry, killing its seven crew members. This made February 3, 2003 the most difficult day for the teacher to teach, as the students had connected with the Columbia astronauts through their letters.

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38 views

STEM in 30

The document summarizes a teacher's experience teaching about space exploration and having students write letters to astronauts before and after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster. The teacher had students design mission patches and write letters to astronauts in December 2002. In January 2003, as responses were received, the Space Shuttle Columbia broke apart upon reentry, killing its seven crew members. This made February 3, 2003 the most difficult day for the teacher to teach, as the students had connected with the Columbia astronauts through their letters.

Uploaded by

Verendra
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Many teachers will say that September 12, 2001 was a hard day to teach: No one knew

what was going on, some parents kept kids at home, and the students that did come to
school didn’t understand. None of us did. For me, this was actually my second hardest
day of teaching.
My most difficult day was February 3, 2003, the Monday after the Space
Shuttle Columbia broke up during reentry after a two-week long mission. Before coming
to the National Air and Space Museum to host STEM in 30, I was an elementary and
middle school teacher for sixteen years in Missouri public schools.
The Columbia disaster was during my fifth year of teaching.
One of the language arts concepts I taught was letter writing, and I also covered space
in my science curriculum. For many years I combined the two and had students write
letters to astronauts. A month before Columbia’s launch, I taught my fifth grade students
about the symbolism of mission patches, showing them how the stars on the patch
typically represent the children of the crew. After learning about mission patches I gave
each student a class list of their “crewmates.” They were tasked with creating a mission
patch that represented our class and our “mission.”
This STS-111 patch belonged to NASA astronaut David Brown.

After completing the patches, a list of current astronauts was passed around and the
kids chose one at random to write to. Often they chose an astronaut because of an
interesting sounding name, or if the student had the same first or last name. The girls
often chose female astronauts. Then, the kids began researching their astronauts and
writing letters. Their goal in the letter was to ask a couple of questions and to trade their
class-designed mission patch for one from an astronaut.

The responses were incredible! Students received signed pictures, handwritten letters,
and mission patch stickers, or occasionally an embroidered mission patch. Every letter
returned was cause for a class celebration. As the students came to the front of the
room and opened their letters- often a large manila envelope with the NASA logo on the
front-you could hear a pin drop. Watching the kids walk back to their desks with their
responses, no matter what it was, was amazing. Kids clapped and the letter’s recipient
walked back to his or her desk like a conquering hero.

In 2003, we had mailed our letters just before the holiday break in December. All
through January responses came trickling in.
STS-107 crew members lost when space shuttle "Columbia" 

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