Verona students participate in out-of-this-world experiment
A common inspirational poster seen in classrooms tells students to shoot for the moon, and even if they miss, they will land among the stars. Sixth-graders in Verona aimed for such celestial heights a little more literally during a recent project.
At the end of last school year at H.B. Whitehorne Middle School, the students spent time studying solar systems and space exploration. To help strengthen the lessons, the teachers enlisted their pupils into the PongSats program.
Each entry for PongSats involved the placement of an item within a Ping-Pong ball, and the students had to hypothesize what would happen to their objects once they exited Earth. Along with about 2,200 other entries, the Verona pong balls will be put on a weather balloon and carried into space Sunday, Sept. 28. Once they return later in the fall, they will be sent back to the township so they can find out.
Sixth-grade teacher Amy Heckel said she saw the program online and decided to involve her students.
"This is really like a once in a lifetime opportunity," Heckel told the Times. "At what time do you have the opportunity to do this? I couldn't pass this up."
Some of the items the students elected to send into outer space include a marshmallow, a battery, a popcorn kernel to see if it would pop, a nectarine pit, hair, aluminum foil, a sponge and raisins. One sixth-grader also decided to enlist his Lego astronaut figurine, and Heckel said she could not say no to that idea.
The PongSats will be launched from the Black Rock desert in Nevada, according to the initiative's Kickstarter website used to raise funds for the program. The Verona participants plan to hold some sort of "unveiling ceremony" once their experiments return in October or November, Heckel said.
Though the students who made the projects are now in the seventh grade, the science classes still start out by discussing the atmosphere and weather to tie in to the PongSats, according to Heckel.
Even after the young scientists finished the class, teacher Paul Moschella said he still receives questions about the progress of the pong balls. Moschella said he hopes the students will take a long-term approach to the PongSats experiments, as some of them require more time to finish. For example, the teacher said some sixth-graders sent seeds into space and will plant them once they return, all while comparing them to Earth-bound foliage.
Should PongSat continue to send objects out of this world, Heckel said she would definitely want to be involved again.
The project also aligns itself with new curriculum objectives of involving students more directly in the learning process versus listening to lectures, Heckel said. Moschella said the opportunity became a good educational experience.
"I think any time that you can show the students that there are things out there that are available to them if you just ask, it's a good thing."
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