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| Sera Cass, a rising seventh-grader who is homeschooled, prepares to launch her model rocket during SCC’s Summer STEM Academy on Friday, June 17, at the Jackson Campus in Sylva. |
For five action-packed days last month, 20 elementary and middle-school students participated in Southwestern Community College’s inaugural Summer STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Academy at the Jackson Campus.
The students went on field trips to Appalachian State University and Pisgah Astronomical Research Institute (PARI) in Rosman. They also built model cars powered by rubber bands and balloons, made topographic maps and capped off the week by launching their own homemade rockets during the camp – which was presented through a cooperative agreement with NASA.
The camp ran from June 13-17 and was open to students from SCC’s service area of Jackson, Macon, Swain Counties and the Qualla Boundary.
“Our overall goal is to promote STEM literacy and careers in our region,” said SCC science department chair Matt Cass, principal investigator for the NASA project and camp director. “It was awesome to see these kids’ enthusiasm for science, and we were blown away at how quickly they learned and how engaged they were in all the activities.”
Learning about space and the fundamentals of rocket science were some of the highlights for Taleigh Verrault, a rising seventh grader at Scotts Creek Elementary.
“Everything was really fun,” Verrault said moments after successfully launching and recovering her model rocket on June 17. “I loved the field trips and shooting off rockets. … At PARI, I liked the stars activity where we figured out what kinds of stars we were looking at.”
Holden Bullock, a rising eighth grader at Smokey Mountain Elementary, said his favorite part was “watching my rocket blow up in mid-air.” He was referring to the last phase of model rocket flight where the nose cone pops off to eject a streamer that creates enough drag to allow the aircraft to descend slowly.
Through the cooperative agreement with NASA, SCC plans to offer the academy again next summer. Throughout the upcoming academic year, which starts Aug. 15, Cass and other SCC instructors will incorporate more NASA-related components into their program.
Another key element of the cooperative agreement with NASA will be a public viewing and literacy event for the Aug. 21, 2017, total solar eclipse in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park – one of the prime locations for observing the rare phenomenon.
For more information about SCC’s cooperative agreement with NASA, contact Cass at 828.339.4384 or mcass@southwesterncc.edu.
(The SCC Summer STEM Academy is based upon work supported by NASA under award No. NNX16AB87A. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.)
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| Taleigh Verrault, a rising seventh grader at Scotts Creek Elementary, holds her rocket while listening to pre-launch instructions during SCC’s Summer STEM Academy on Friday, June 17, at the Jackson Campus in Sylva. |
