Students Learning About Saturn
Cody Finn created an entire planetary system Wednesday from tape and cardboard. Emily Hope found her niche detailing how the parts of her space probe work. Natalie Smith had her head in the stars.
These kids, along with about 40 others from the East Valley School District’s Continuous Curriculum School at Skyview Elementary, were among the first in the nation to get a glimpse of the Cassini-Huygens spacecraft, details of its mission to Saturn and a chance to re-create the momentous voyage.
That’s because Spokane Valley teacher Georgi Delgadillo is one of 21 U.S. educators promoting the international space project and aerospace technology for NASA and its Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
“The kids we have right now are the people that are going to decide how this research changes the way we look at our solar system,” said Delgadillo, a reading teacher at Mountain View Middle School. “Everyone in the whole world wants to know about Saturn. When they get out there, they’re going to learn all sorts of things.”
Wednesday was the big kickoff for the educational project for one big reason: The spacecraft, launched in October 1997, made a pass-by of the Earth this week.
The largest interplantentary spacecraft ever built has already traveled more than 1 billion miles. It has four more years of travel time before reaching the sixth planet from the sun.
The complicated path of the satellite actually helps it use gravity to gain speed for the seven-year journey to Saturn. It would have taken nine years if the satellite was set on a direct course powered by fuel.
Cassini-Huygens will spend four years exploring Saturn and its moons. The mission includes study of magnetic fields and rings; the icy moons and their geology; and a full investigation of the Titan moon that scientists believe is characteristic of Earth in its early stages.
The mission bears the name of 17th century astronomer Jean Dominique Cassini, who discovered the prominent gap in Saturn’s main rings as well as several of the icy moons. It also honors Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens, who discovered the moon Titan in 1655.
That’s all fine and dandy for adult Earthlings. But for Peter Rinne, who now has an itch to make a career out of space exploration, it was the QuickTime Internet movies that simulate the probe’s travels across the surface of Saturn and Titan that really impressed him.
“It makes me really want to know more about space stuff,” Peter said. “I can see how they built it.”
Generating that type of enthusiasm in kids is why Delgadillo wanted to hook up with NASA in the first place.
“I’ve always been a space kid,” she said recalling hours spent as a child studying the heavens. “But, by fourth grade, lots of kids lose interest in science. That breaks my heart.”
So, she applied to become a Cassini Fellow and was one of the few educators who didn’t teach science chosen to join the global effort to explore Saturn.
“They wanted diversity in the group,” Delgadillo said about why she was chosen. “But, I didn’t think I had a chance.”
The space project involves NASA, the European Space Agency, the Italian Space Agency and several other European groups.
“The earlier we can get kids interested in science the better,” Delgadillo said. `Kids need to get ready for what will happen after this.”
For at least the next two years, Delgadillo will be traveling around Washington, Idaho and Montana showing teachers how to integrate the mission and space study into lesson plans from English and art to math and science.
The kids just want all of the interesting goodies that go along with traveling to unknown reaches of the universe to continue.
“It’s really neat,” said 5-year-old Emily Hope. “I like the robots and the movies. Space is fun.”
This sidebar appeared with the story: MORE INFORMATION Space mission Anyone interested in checking out the Cassini-Huygens space mission can log onto the Internet at http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/cassini.