Kids corner: Students show what they learn at NASA Family Night

Key Peninsula Middle School given national award

Hugh McMillan

Kids corner

Kelly Jackson, a parent of a Key Peninsula Middle School student, had one thing to say about NASA Family Night.

“Wow!”

“The NASA team experience has really paid off with a really good mix of hands-on experiences and hands on work,” Jackson said. “Students and families were able to pair up and achieve goals based on scientific principals, which ranged from finding points on the moon’s surface, to using robotic hands to achieve a common goal, to assembling tetrahedron kites, to determining the actual size of a space aircraft, and much more.”

KPMS held its first NASA Family Night earlier this month. More than 300 people celebrated the school’s fifth year as a NASA Explorer School.

The evening, launched with a buffet dinner catered by Sodexho Food Services and fresh coffee by Starbucks, was attended by representatives of Intel, Brainware, e-instruction, Pasco, the Museum of Flight and Computer Technology Link.

Kareen Borders, NASA Explorer School Team Lead, greeted everyone and KPMS’ selection as the winner of the National 2008 Intel Schools of Distinction Award for Middle School Science.

Ron Stark and Amy D’Andrea, members of the team, led a game of, “Are you smarter than a KPMS NASA student?” It demonstrated some technology the school receives as part of the grant, and audience members used classroom response systems to record their answers.

Graphs then displayed the results: KPMS receives more than $160,000 in technology and a $10,000 grant.

Cindy Knisely, KPMS’ Explorer Family Coordinator, introduced space-related family learning, including the planetarium, an astronaut training center, Moon Mud, a paper airplane station, a Lunar Scavenger hunt, Geocaching, a glovebox activity, a microgravity demonstration by Pasco and 2GoPC, and tetrahedron kite building.

“The best things about NASA night were the (Museum of Flight) planetarium and the geocaching activities,” said student T.J. Liilyeblade. “They were both fun and entertaining.”

Student Jakub Morton agreed, saying, “you got to see different star formations and planets.” He liked geocaching, “because you had to find a box that was hidden in the school. It’s fun for the whole family.”

Sixth-grader Justin Bohl learned that tetrahedron means triangular prism or 3-D triangle.

“I also learned that, in space, it looks like you’re moving really slow, but you’re actually moving hundreds of miles per hour,” he said. “You can be from Washington to Singapore in a few minutes.”

Student Starrla Neumann said she had fun building things with her friends.

“We made a life-size outline of a space shuttle and found out (it) is the size of the KPMS gym, plus four feet,” she said.

Also celebrated was KPMS’ selection as the winner of the National 2008 Intel Schools of Distinction Award for Middle School Science.

Wendy Ramage Hawkins, executive director for the Intel Foundation, said judges for the Intel Schools of Distinction program were impressed by “the comprehensive effort made by the Key Peninsula school community to transform the school into a place where students live and breathe science every day.”

“We expect to see (KP) students moving on to become science leaders and innovators, changing the world in coming years,” Hawkins said.

Let’s be sure we all understand: At the national level, one high school, one middle school and one elementary school were selected for this honor — and KPMS was the only middle school chosen from the whole country.

Eighth-grader Kamryn Minch said she liked the demonstrations and loved how parents could interact with what the students do at school.

“We are way more advanced than other schools in our district, and I’m proud to be at a NASA Explorer School,” Minch said.

A comment like that from a student has just got to make KPMS staff members glow.

Hugh McMillan is a longtime freelance writer for The Peninsula Gateway. He can be reached at 253-884-3319.