Thomas County Middle School eighth graders recently took a trip to the Challenger Learning Center in Tallahassee. The trip, sponsored by Flowers Industries, included an IMAX movie, science demonstrations, and a simulated Mars mission. Several students shared their experience about the trip. "It's great that Flowers Industries paid for the field trips to the Challenger Learning Center because the trip was AMAZING! If Flowers Industries hadn't sponsored the trip not everyone in the 8th grade could have gone and they would have missed out on a great learning experience,” said India Thomas.
The IMAX movie, Dream Big, introduces the students to individuals who were inspired to become engineers and are now making a difference in the world with their talents. "The movie was amazing. The part about the kids in Haiti that were in danger of drowning because they had to cross a river to get to school really made me think. An engineer that could have gone into a job making a lot of money decided to help out by building them a bridge. That got me to wondering about what I could do for my community or the world," responded Kaylee Barrett when asked what she thought of the movie.
During the simulated Mars
missions students got to experience what it is like to be an astronaut on a NASA mission. They each had a job to carry out with their teammates in order to have a successful mission. Just as in a real mission training, students sometimes had to overcome surprise “emergencies” that threatened to end the mission. Dayana Clark explains, “My favorite part of the mission was when we were in the spaceship and I (the geologist) got to dig rocks with a robot arm. I would do it again in a heartbeat.”
In the first picture from the forefront, Javerius Franklin and Emma Mitchell are monitoring weather in space; and Brooks Butler, and Kendall Cullison are in charge of navigation on the spacecraft.
In the second picture, Everett Sanzo (left) and Austin Johnson (right) are building the robotic rover to explore Mars.
In the third image, Gabe Arrazola is testing soil to look for signs of life on Mars.
In the fourth image, Laurianna Waddell and Aryan Patel are working in mission control in geology looking for water on Mars.